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PORTRAIT, ALFRED THE GREAT 



^Famous Cbaracters of Ibistorp 

KING ALFRE 

OF ENGLAND 

BY 
JACOB ABBOTT 

Volume II. 
ILLUSTRATED 



1906 
THE ST. HUBERT GUILD 

NEW YORK 



Workshops : Akron, Ohio 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS ' 
Two Conies Received 

AUG 6 J 906 

SoDyrigdt Entry . 
'^ ' XAc, No. 




COPYRIGHT, 1906, 
BY 

The St. Hubert Guild 



PREFACE 



King Alfred of England is one of the noblest of 
the sovereigns upon whom History has conferred the 
title of "The Great." At the very beginning of the 
world-encircling history of the Anglo-Saxon race looms 
his majestic figure. We see him through the mist of 
ten centuries hurling back the invaders of his country, 
giving peace to his realm, ruling it with consummate 
wisdom, laboring arduously at the translation and com- 
position of books that his subjects might receive the 
precious light of learning, codifying their laws that 
justice might prevail in the land, — in short, building 
up out of his broken little dominions a kingdom des- 
tined to become the corner stone of the mighty British 
Empire. 



(ix) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 

Chapter 

I. THE BRITONS '5 

II. THE ANGLO-SAXONS 3^ 

III. THE DANES '^ ' 

IV. ALFRED'S EARLY YEARS 66 

V. STATE OF ENGLAND ^^ 

VI. ALFRED'S ACCESSION TO THE THRONE ... 99 
VII. REVERSES ^ ^4 

VIII. THE SECLUSION ^3^ 

IX. REASSEMBLING OF THE ARMY ....••• '45 

X. THE VICTORY OVER THE DANES . . • • • l6l 



CHARACTER OF ALFRED'S REIGN ...... 177 

THE CLOSE OF LIFE ^93 

206 



XI 

XII 
XIII. THE SEQUEL 



(xi) 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Alfred the Great 

Pace 

PORTRAIT, ALFRED THE GREAT .... FrOflUspiece 

ALFRED AND ETHELWAITHA I l6 

THE SCOLDING OF ALFRED BY THE PEASANT WOMAN 

FOR BURNING THE CAKES 1 36 



(xiii) 



ALFRED THE GREAT 



CHAPTER I. 

The Britons. 

Alfred the founder of the British monarchy. — Hereditary succession. — The 
fabulous age of history. — Tradition. — The Trojan war. — Adventures of 
.<Eneas. — Wanderings of Brutus. — Singular treaty of peace. — Brutus 
lands on a deserted island. — Response of the oracle.— Brutus passes the 
Pillars of Hercules. — He lands in Britain. — Giants and wild beasts. — 
Situation and extent of Great Britain. — Fertility and beauty of the island. 
— Successors of Brutus. — Tales and legends. — The story of King Ivcar. — 
Honest truth and empty professions. — Ingratitude of I^ear's daughters. — 
Julius Caesar. — His conquest of Great Britain. — Queen Boadicea. — Her 
person and character. — Death of Boadicea. — Final subjugation of the 
Britons. — The Picts and Scots. — Their depredations. — Visit of the Em- 
peror Severus. — His dissolute sons. — Base conduct of Bassianus. — His 
interview with his father. — Peace with the Picts and Scots. — The Wall of 
Severus. — Stations. — Castles.— Turrets. — Ditch. — Military road. — De- 
cline of the Roman empire. — Distress of the Britons. 

ALFRED THE GREAT figurcs in history as the founder, 
in some sense, of the British monarchy. Of 
that long succession of sovereigns who have 
held the scepter of that monarchy, and whose govern- 
ment has exerted so vast an influence on the con- 
dition and welfare of mankind, he was not, indeed, 
actually the first. There were several lines of insig- 

(15) 



i6 ALFRED THE GREAT [B.C. 800 

niflcant princes before him, who governed such por- 
tions of the kingdom as they individually possessed, 
more like semi-savage chieftains than English kings. 
Alfred followed these by the principle of hereditary 
right, and spent his life in laying broad and deep the 
foundations on which the enormous superstructure of 
the British empire has since been reared. If the tales 
respecting his character and deeds which have come 
down to us are at all worthy of belief, he was an 
honest, conscientious, disinterested, and far-seeing 
statesman. If the system of hereditary succession 
would always furnish such sovereigns for mankind, 
the principle of loyalty would have held its place 
much longer in the world than it is now likely to do, 
and great nations, now republican, would have been 
saved a vast deal of trouble and toil expended in the 
election of their rulers. 

Although the period of King Alfred's reign seems 
a very remote one as we look back toward it from 
the present day, it was still eight hundred years after 
the Christian era that he ascended his throne. Tol- 
erable authentic history of the British realm mounts 
up through these eight hundred years to the time of 
Julius C^sar. Beyond this the ground is covered by 
a series of romantic and fabulous tales, pretending to 
be history, which extend back eight hundred years 
further to the days of Solomon; so that a much 
longer portion of the story of that extraordinary island 



B.C. 800] THE BRITONS 17 

comes before than since the days of Alfred. In re- 
spect, however, to all that pertains to the interest 
and importance of the narrative, the exploits and the 
arrangements of Alfred are the beginning. 

The histories, in fact, of all nations, ancient and 
modern, run back always into misty regions of ro- 
mance and fable. Before arts and letters arrived at 
such a state of progress as that public events could 
be recorded in writing, tradition v/as the only means 
of handing down the memory of events from genera- 
tion to generation; and tradition, among semi-sav- 
ages, changes every thing it touches into romantic and 
marvelous fiction. 

The stories connected with the earliest discovery 
and settlement of Great Britain afford very good illus- 
trations of the nature of these fabulous tales. The 
following may serve as a specimen: 

At the close of the Trojan war,* -/^neas retired 
with a company of Trojans, who escaped from the 
city with him, and, after a great variety of adven- 
tures, which Virgil has related, he landed and settled 
in Italy. Here, m process of time, he had a grand- 
son named Silvius, who had a son named Brutus, 
Brutus being thus y^neas's great-grandson. 

One day, while Brutus was hunting in the forests. 



*For some account of the circumstances connected with this war 
see our history of Alexander, chapter vi. 

M. ofH.— 15— 2 



i8 ALFRED THE GREAT [B.C. 800 

he accidentally killed his father with an arrow. His 
father was at that time King of Alba — a region of 
Italy near the spot on which Rome was subsequently 
built — and the accident brought Brutus under such 
suspicions, and exposed him to such dangers, that he 
fled from the country. After various wanderings he 
at last reached Greece, where he collected a number 
of Trojan followers, whom he found roaming about 
the country, and formed them into an army. With 
this half-savage force he attacked a king of the coun- 
try named Pandrasus. Brutus was successful in the 
war, and Pandrasus was taken prisoner. This com- 
pelled Pandrasus to sue for peace, and peace was 
concluded on the following very extraordinary terms: 

Pandrasus was to give Brutus his daughter Imo- 
gena for a wife, and a fleet of ships as her dowry. 
Brutus, on the other hand, was to take his wife and 
all his followers on board of his tleet, and sail away 
and seek a home in some other quarter of the globe. 
This plan of a monarch's purchasing his own ransom 
and peace for his realm from a band of roaming rob- 
bers, by offering the leader of them his daughter for 
a wife, however strange to our ideas, was very char- 
acteristic of the times. Imogena must have found it 
a hard alternative to choose between such a husband 
and such a father. 

Brutus, with his fleet and his bride, betook them- 
selves to sea, and within a short time landed on a 



B.C. 800] THE BRITONS 19 

deserted island, where they found the ruins of a city. 
Here there was an ancient temple of Diana, and an 
image of the goddess, which image was endued with 
the power of uttering oracular responses to those who 
consulted it with proper ceremonies and forms. Bru- 
tus consulted this oracle on the question in what 
land he should find a place of final settlement. His 
address to it was in ancient verse, which some 
chronicler has turned into English rhyme as follows: 

" Goddess of shades and huntress, who at will 

Walk'st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep 
On thy third reign, the earth, look now and tell 

What land, what seat of rest thou bidd'st me seek?" 

To which the oracle returned the following 
answer: 

"Far to the west, in the ocean wide, 
Beyond the realm of Gaul a land there lies — 
Sea-girt it lies — where giants dwelt of old. 
Now void, it fits thy people; thither bend 
Thy course; there shalt thou find a lasting home." 

It is scarcely necessary to say that this meant 
Britain. Brutus, following the directions which the 
oracle had given him, set sail from the island, and 
proceeded to the westward through the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. He arrived at the Pillars of Hercules. 
This was the name by which the Rock of Gibraltar 
and the corresponding promontory on the opposite 
coast, across the straits, were called in those days; 



20 ALFRED THE GREAT [B.C. 800 

these cliffs having been built, according to ancient 
tales, by Hercules, as monuments set up to mark the 
extreme limits of his western wanderings. Brutus 
passed through the strait, and then, turning north- 
ward, coasted along the shores of Spain. 

At length, after enduring great privations and suf- 
fering, and encountering the extreme dangers to which 
their frail barks were necessarily exposed from the 
surges which roll in perpetually from the broad At- 
lantic Ocean upon the coast of Spain and into the 
Bay of Biscay, they arrived safely on the shores of 
Britain. They landed and explored the interior. They 
found the island robed in the richest drapery of fruit- 
fulness and verdure, but it was unoccupied by any 
thing human. There were wild beasts roaming in 
the forests, and the remains of a race of giants in 
dens and caves — monsters as diverse from humanity 
as the wolves. Brutus and his followers attacked all 
these occupants of the land. They drove the wild 
beasts into the mountains of Scotland and Wales, and 
killed the giants. The chief of them, whose name 
was Gogmagog, was hurled by one of Brutus's fol- 
lowers from the summit of one of the chalky cliffs 
which bound the island into the sea. 

The island of Great Britain is in the latitude of 
Labrador, v/hich on our side of the continent is the 
synonym for almost perpetual ice and snow; still these 
wandering Trojans found it a region of inexhaustible 



B.C. 800] THE BRITONS 21 

verdure, fruitfulness, and beauty; and as to its extent, 
though often, in modern times, called a Httle island, 
they found its green fields and luxuriant forests ex- 
tending very far and wide over the sea. A length of 
nearly six hundred miles would seem almost to merit 
the name of continent, and the dimensions of this de- 
tached outpost of the habitable surface of the earth 
would never have been deemed inconsiderable, had it 
not been that the people, by the greatness of their 
exploits, of which the whole world has been the thea- 
ter, have made the physical dimensions of their terri- 
tory appear so small and insignificant in comparison. 
To Brutus and his companions the land appeared a 
world. It was nearly four hundred miles in breadth 
at the place where they landed, and, wandering north- 
ward, they found it extending, in almost undimin- 
ished beauty and fruitfulness, further than they had 
the disposition to explore it. They might have gone 
northward until the twilight scarcely disappeared in 
the summer nights, and have found the same verdure 
and beauty continuing to the end. There were broad 
and undulating plains in the southern regions of the 
island, and in the northern, green mountains and ro- 
mantic glens; but all, plains, valleys, and mountains, 
were fertile and beautiful, and teeming with abundant 
sustenance for flocks, for herds, and for man. 

Brutus accordingly established himself upon the is- 
land with all his followers, and founded a kingdom 



22 ALFRED THE GREAT [B.C. 800 

there, over which he reigned as the founder of a dy- 
nasty. Endless tales are told of the lives, and ex- 
ploits, and quarrels of his successors dov^n to the 
time of Csesar. Conflicting claimants arose continually 
to dispute with each other for the possession of 
power; wars were made by one tribe upon another; 
cities, as they were called — though probably, in fact, 
they were only rude collections of hovels — were built, 
fortresses were founded, and rivers were named from 
princes or princesses drowned in them, in accidental 
journeys, or by the violence of rival claimants to their 
thrones. The pretended records contain a vast num- 
ber of legends, of very little interest or value, as the 
reader will readily admit when we tell him that the 
famous story of King Lear is the most entertaining 
one in the whole collection. It is this: 

There was a king in the line named Lear. He 
founded the city now called Leicester. He had three 
daughters, whose names were Gonilla, Regana, and 
Cordiella. Cordiella was her father's favorite child. 
He was, however, jealous of the affections of them 
all, and one day he called them to him, and asked 
them for some assurance of their love. The two eld- 
est responded by making the most extravagant pro- 
testations. They loved their father a thousand times 
better than their own souls. They could not express, 
they said, the ardor and strength of their attachment, 



B.C. 800] THE BRITONS 23 

and called heaven and earth to witness that these pro- 
testations were sincere. 

Cordiella, all this time, stood meekly and silently 
by, and when her father asked her how it was with her, 
she replied, "Father, my love toward you is as my 
duty bids. What can a father ask, or a daughter 
promise more.? They who pretend beyond this only 
flatter." 

The king, who was old and childish, was much 
pleased with the manifestation of love offered by 
Gonilla and Regana, and thought that the honest Cor- 
diella was heartless and cold. He treated her with 
greater and greater neglect and finally decided to leave 
her without any portion whatever, while he divided 
his kingdom between the other two, having previously 
married them to princes of high rank. Cordiella was, 
however, at last made choice of for a wife by a 
French prince, who, it seems, knew better than the 
old king how much more to be relied upon was un- 
pretending and honest truth than empty and extrava- 
gant profession. He married the portionless Cordiella, 
and took her with him to the Continent. 

The old king now having given up his kingdom 
to his eldest daughters, they managed by artifice and 
maneuvering, to get every thing else away from him, 
so that he became wholly dependent upon them, and 
had to live with them by turns. This was not all; 
for, at the instigation of their husbands, they put so 



24 ALFRED THE GREAT [63 

many indignities and affronts upon him, that his life 
at length became an intolerable burden, and finally he 
was compelled to leave the realm altogether, and in 
his destitution and distress he went for refuge and 
protection to his rejected daughter, Cordiella. She re- 
ceived her father with the greatest alacrity and affec- 
tion. She raised an army to restore him to his rights, 
and went in person with him to England to assist 
him in recovering them. She was successful. The 
old king took possession of his throne again, and 
reigned in peace for the remainder of his days. The 
story is of itself nothing very remarkable, though 
Shakspeare has immortalized it by making it the sub- 
ject of one of his tragedies. 

Centuries passed away, and at length the great 
Julius Csesar, who was extending the Roman power 
in every direction, made his way across the Channel, 
and landed in England. The particulars of this inva- 
sion are described in our history of Julius Caesar. 
The Romans retained possession of the island, in a 
greater or less degree, for four hundred years. 

They did not, however, hold it in peace all this 
time. They became continually involved in difficulties 
and contests with the native Britons, who could ill 
brook the oppressions of such merciless masters as 
Roman generals always proved in the provinces which 
they pretended to govern. One of the most formida- 



63] THE BRITONS 25 

ble rebellions that the Romans had to encounter dur- 
ing their disturbed and troubled sway in Britain was 
led on by a woman. Her name was Boadicea. Boa- 
dicea, like almost all other heroines, was coarse and 
repulsive in appearance. She was tall and masculine 
in form. The tones of her voice were harsh, and 
she had the countenance of a savage. Her hair 
was yellow. It might have been beautiful if it had 
been neatly arranged, and had shaded a face which 
possessed the gentle expression that belongs properly 
to woman. It would then have been called golden. 
As it was, hanging loosely below her waist and 
streaming in the wind, it made the wearer only look 
the more frightful. Still, Boadicea was not by any 
means indifferent to the appearance she made in the 
eyes of beholders. She evinced her desire to make a 
favorable impression upon others, in her own peculiar 
way, it is true, but in one which must have been 
effective, considering what sort of beholders they were 
in whose eyes she figured. She was dressed in a 
gaudy coat, wrought of various colors, with a sort of 
mantle buttoned over it. She wore a great gold chain 
about her neck, and held an ornamented spear in her 
hand. Thus equipped, she appeared at the head of 
an army of a hundred thousand men, and gathering 
them around her, she ascended a mound of earth and 
harangued them — that is, as many as could stand 
within reach of her voice — arousing them to senti- 



26 ALFRED THE GREAT [63 

ments of revenge against their hated oppressors, and 
urging them to the highest pitch of determination and 
courage for the approaching struggle. Boadicea had 
reason to deem the Romans her implacable foes. 
They had robbed her of her treasures, deprived her 
of her kingdom, imprisoned her, scourged her, and 
inflicted the worst possible injuries upon her daughters. 
These things had driven the wretched mother to a 
perfect phrensy of hate, and aroused her to this des- 
perate struggle for redress and revenge. But all was 
in vain. In encountering the spears of Roman sol- 
diery, she was encountering the very hardest and 
sharpest steel that a cruel world could furnish. Her 
army was conquered, and she killed herself by taking 
poison in her despair. 

By struggles such as these the contest between 
the Romans and the Britons was carried on for many 
generations; the Romans conquering at every trial, 
until, at length, the Britons learned to submit without 
further resistance to their sway. In fact, there grad- 
ually came upon the stage, during the progress of 
these centuries, a new power, acting as an enemy to 
both the Picts and Scots; hordes of lawless barbari- 
ans, who inhabited the mountains and morasses of 
Scotland and Ireland. These terrible savages made 
continual irruptions into the southern country for 
plunder, burning and destroying, as they retired, what- 



2o6] THE BRITONS 27 

ever they could not carry away. They lived in im- 
pregnable and almost inaccessible fastnesses, among 
dark glens and precipitous mountains, and upon 
gloomy islands surrounded by iron-bound coasts and 
stormy seas. The Roman legions made repeated at- 
tempts to hunt them out of these retreats, but with 
very little success. At length a line of fortified posts 
was established across the island, near where the 
boundary line now lies between England and Scot- 
land; and by guarding this line, the Roman generals 
who had charge of Britain attempted to protect the 
inhabitants of the southern country, who had learned 
at length to submit peaceably to their sway. 

One of the most memorable events which occurred 
during the time that the Romans held possession of 
the island of Britain was the visit of one of the em- 
perors to this northern extremity of his dominions. 
The name of this emperor was Severus. He was 
powerful and prosperous at home, but his life was 
embittered by one great calamity, the dissolute char- 
acter and the perpetual quarrels of his sons. To re- 
move them from Rome, where they disgraced both 
themselves and their father by their vicious lives, and 
the ferocious rivalry and hatred they bore to each 
other, Severus planned an excursion to Britain, taking 
them with him, in the hope of turning their minds 
into new channels of thought, and awakening in them 
some new and nobler ambition. 



28 ALFRED THE GREAT [206 

At the time when Severus undertook this expedi- 
tion, he was advanced in age and very infirm. He 
suffered much from the gout, so that he was unable 
to travel by any ordinary conveyance, and was borne, 
accordingly, almost all the way upon a litter. He 
crossed the Channel with his army, and, leaving one 
of his sons in command in the south part of the 
island, he advanced with the other, at the head of an 
enormous force, determined to push boldly forward 
into the heart of Scotland, and to bring the war with 
the Picts and Scots to an effectual end. 

He met, however, with very partial success. His 
soldiers became entangled in bogs and morasses; they 
fell into ambuscades; they suffered every degree of 
privation and hardship for want of water and of food, 
and were continually entrapped by their enemies in 
situations where they had to fight in small numbers 
and at a great disadvantage. Then, too, the aged and 
feeble general was kept in a continual fever of anxiety 
and trouble by Bassianus, the son whom he had 
brought with him to the north. The dissoluteness 
and violence of his character were not changed by 
the change of scene. He formed plots and conspir- 
acies against his father's authority; he raised mutinies 
in the army; he headed riots; and he was finally de- 
tected in a plan for actually assassinating his father. 
Severus, when he discovered this last enormity of 
wickedness, sent for his son to come to his imperial 



2o6] THE BRITONS 29 

tent. He laid a naked sword before him, and then, 
after bitterly reproaching him with his undutiful and 
ungrateful conduct, he said, "If you wish to kill me, 
do it now. Here I stand, old, infirm, and helpless. 
You are young and strong, and can do it easily. I 
am ready. Strike the blow." 

Of course Bassianus shrank from his father's re- 
proaches, and went away without committing the 
crime to which he was thus reproachfully invited; 
but his character remained unchanged; and this con- 
stant trouble, added to all the other difficulties which 
Severus encountered, prevented his accomplishing his 
object of thoroughly conquering his northern foes. 
He made a sort of peace with them, and retiring 
south to the line of fortified posts which had been 
previously established, he determined to make it a 
fixed and certain boundary by building upon it a per- 
manent wall. He put the whole force of his army 
upon the work, and in one or two years, as is said, 
he completed the structure. It is known in history 
as the Wall of Severus; and so solid, substantial, and 
permanent was the work, that the traces of it have 
not entirely disappeared to the present day. 

The wall extended across the island, from the 
mouth of the Tyne, on the German Ocean, to the 
Solway Frith — nearly seventy miles. It was twelve 
feet high, and eight feet wide. It was faced with 
substantial masonry on both sides, the intermediate 



30 ALFRED THE GREAT [206 

space being likewise filled in with stone. When it 
crossed bays or morasses, piles were driven to serve 
as a foundation. Of course, such a wall as this, by 
itself, would be no defense. It was to be garrisoned 
by soldiers, being intended, in fact, only as a means 
to enable a smaller number of troops than would 
otherwise be necessary to guard the line. For these 
soldiers there were built great fortresses at intervals 
along the wall, wherever a situation was found favor- 
able for such structures. These were called stations. 
The stations were occupied by garrisons of troops, 
and small towns of artificers and laborers soon sprung 
up around them. Between the stations, at smaller 
intervals, were other smaller fortresses called castles, 
intended as places of defense, and rallying points in 
case of an attack, but not for garrisons of any con- 
siderable number of men. Then, between the castles, 
at smaller intervals still, were turrets, used as watch- 
towers and posts for sentinels. Thus the whole line 
of the wall was every where defended by armed 
men. The whole number thus employed in the de- 
fense of this extraordinary rampart was said to be ten 
thousand. There was a broad, deep, and continuous 
ditch on the northern side of the wall, to make the 
impediment still greater for the enemy, and a spacious 
and well-constructed military road on the southern 
side, on which troops, stores, wagons, and baggage of 



435] THE BRITONS 31 

every kind could be readily transported along the 
line, from one end to the other. 

The wall was a good defense as long as Roman 
soldiers remained to guard it. But in process of time 
— about two centuries after Severus's day — the Roman 
empire itself began to decline, even in the very seat 
and center of its power; and then, to preserve their 
own capital from destruction, the government were 
obliged to call their distant armies home. The wall 
was left to the Britons; but they could not defend it. 
The Picts and Scots, finding out the change, renewed 
their assaults. They battered down the castles; they 
made breaches here and there in the wall; they built 
vessels, and, passing round by sea across the mouth 
of the Solway Frith and of the River Tyne, they re- 
newed their old incursions for plunder and destruction. 
The Britons, in extreme distress, sent again and again 
to recall the Romans to their aid, and they did, in 
fact, receive from them some occasional and temporary 
succor. At length, however, all hope of help from 
this quarter failed, and the Britons, finding their con- 
dition desperate, were compelled to resort to a des- 
perate remedy, the nature of which will be explained 
in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER H. 

The Anglo-Saxons, 

Constitutional and connate differences among men. — Characteristics of 
nations. — Five great races. — Diflferences of races. — The Caucasians. — 
Civilization of the Caucasians. — Their permanency. — Achievements of 
the Caucasians. — Ancient and modern Caucasians. — Subordinate differ- 
ences. — Hove accounted for. — The Anglo-Saxons. — Their early qualities. 

— Courage and enterprise of the Anglo-Saxons. — Their nautical exploits. 

— Conjugal fidelity. — Pride and love of power. — I^auding of the Anglo- 
Saxons. — Commencement of English history. — The three ships. — Num- 
ber of adventurers. — Vessels of the Anglo-Saxons. — Hengist and Horsa. — 
The place of landing.— The island of Thanet. — Objects of Hengist and 
Horsa. — Vortigern. — Character of Vortigern. — He seeks the assistance 
of the Anglo-Saxons. — Increase of the Anglo-Saxons. — Story of Rowena. 

— Power of Hengist and Horsa. — l,ong contests. — Hengist accused of 
treachery. — Exploits of Kiug Arthur. — Death of Arthur. — His contests 
with the Saxons. — King Arthur's grave. — Disinterment of his body. — 
Bones of Arthur's wife. — Historic doubts. 

ANY one who will look around upon the families 
of his acquaintance will observe that family 
characteristics and resemblances prevail not 
only in respect to stature, form, expression of coun- 
tenance, and other outward and bodily tokens, but 
also in regard to the constitutional temperaments and 
capacities of the soul. Sometimes we find a group 
in which high intellectual powers and great energy 
of action prevail for many successive generations, and 
(32) 



449] THE ANGLO-SAXONS ^3 

in all the branches into which the original stock 
divides; in other cases, the hereditary tendency is to 
gentleness and harmlessness of character, with a full 
development of all the feelings and sensibilities of the 
soLiL Others, again, exhibit congenital tendencies to 
great physical strength and hardihood, and to powers 
of muscular exertion and endurance. These differences, 
notwithstanding all the exceptions and irregularities 
connected with them, are obviously, where they exist, 
deeply seated and permanent. They depend very 
slightly upon any mere external causes. They have, 
on the contrary, their foundation in some hidden 
principles connected with the origin of life, and with 
the mode of its transmission from parent to offspring, 
which the researches of philosophers have never yet 
been able to explore. 

The same constitutional and congenital peculiari- 
ties which we see developing themselves all around 
us in families, mark, on a greater scale, the charac- 
teristics of the different nations of the earth, and in a 
degree much higher still, the several great and dis- 
tinct races into which the whole human family seems 
to be divided. Physiologists consider that there are 
five of these great races, whose characteristics, mental 
as well as bodily, are distinctly, strongly, and perma- 
nently marked. These characteristics descend by 
hereditary succession from father to son, and though 
education and outward influences may modify them, 

M. of H— 15— 3 



34 ALFRED THE GREAT [449 

they can not essentially change them. Compare, for 
example, the Indian and the African races, each of 
which has occupied for a thousand years a continent 
of its own, where they have been exposed to the 
same variety of climates, and as far as possible to the 
same general outward influences. How entirely di- 
verse from each other they are, not only in form, 
color, and other physical marks, but in all the ten- 
dencies and characteristics of the soul! One can no 
more be changed into the other, than a wolf, by be- 
ing tamed and domesticated, can be made a dog, or 
a dog, by being driven into the forests, be trans- 
formed into a tiger. The difference is still greater be- 
tween either of these races and the Caucasian race. 
This race might probably be called the European 
race, were it not that some Asiatic and some African 
nations have sprung from it, as the Persians, the 
Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Carthaginians, and, in 
modern times, the Turks. All the nations of this race, 
whether European or African, have been distinguished 
by the same physical marks in the conformation of 
the head and the color of the skin, and still more by 
those traits of character — the intellect, the energy, the 
spirit of determination and pride — which, far from 
owing their existence to outward circumstances, have 
always, in all ages, made all outward circumstances 
bend to them. That there have been some great and 
noble specimens of humanity among the African race, 



449] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 35 

for example, no one can deny; but that there is a 
-marked, and fixed, and permanent constitutional dif- 
ference between them and the Caucasian race seems 
evident from this fact, that for two thousand years 
each has held its own continent, undisturbed, in a 
great degree, by the rest of mankind; and while, 
during all this time, no nation of the one race has 
risen, so far as is known, above the very lowest stage 
of civilization, there have been more than fifty entirely 
distinct and independent civilizations originated and 
fully developed in the other. For three thousand 
years the Caucasian race have continued, under all 
circumstances, and in every variety of situation, to 
exhibit the same traits and the same indomitable 
prowess. No calamities, however great, — no desolat- 
ing wars, no destructive pestilence, no wasting fam- 
ine, no night of darkness, however universal and 
gloomy, — has ever been able to keep them long in 
degradation or barbarism. There is not now a bar- 
barous people to be found in the whole race, and 
there has not been one for a thousand years. 

Nearly all the great exploits, and achievements 
too, which have signalized the history of the world, 
have been performed by this branch of the human 
family. They have given celebrity to every age in 
which they have hved, and to every country that 
they have ever possessed, by some great deed, or 
discovery, or achievement, which their intellectual 



:i6 ALFRED THE GREAT [449 

energies have accomplished. As Egyptians, they built 
the Pyramids, and reared enormous monoliths, which 
remain as perfect now as they were when first com- 
pleted, thirty centuries ago. As Phoenicians, they 
constructed ships, perfected navigation, and explored, 
without compass or chart, every known sea. As 
Greeks, they modeled architectural embellishments, 
and cut sculptures in marble, and wrote poems and 
history, v/hich have been ever since the admiration 
of the wodd. As Romans, they carried a complete 
and perfect military organization over fifty nations and 
a hundred millions of people, with one supreme mis- 
tress over all, the ruins of whose splendid palaces 
and monuments have not yet passed away. Thus 
has this race gone on, always distinguishing itself, 
by energy, activity, and intellectual power, wherever 
it has dwelt, whatever language it has spoken, and 
in whatever period of the world it has lived. It has 
invented printing, and filled every country that it oc- 
cupies with permanent records of the past, accessible 
to all. It has explored the' heavens, and reduced to 
precise and exact calculations all the complicated mo- 
tions there. It has ransacked the earth, systematized, 
arranged, and classified the vast melange of plants, 
and animals, and mineral products to be found upon 
its surface. It makes steam and falling water do 
more than half the work necessary for feeding and 
clothing the human race; and the howling winds of 



449] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 37 

the ocean, the very emblems of resistless destruction 
and terror, it steadily employs in interchanging the 
products of the world, and bearing the means of com- 
fort and plenty to every clime. 

The Caucasian race has thus, in all ages, and in 
all the varieties of condition in which the different 
branches of it have been placed, evinced the same 
great characteristics, marking the existence of some 
innate and constant constitutional superiority; and 
yet, in the different branches, subordinate differences 
appear, which are to be accounted for, perhaps, 
partly by difference of circumstances, and partly, per- 
haps, by similar constitutional diversities — diversities 
by which one branch is distinguished from other 
branches, as the whole race is from the other races 
with which we have compared them. Among these 
branches, we, Anglo-Saxons ourselves, claim for the 
Anglo-Saxons the superiority over all the others. 

The Anglo-Saxons commenced their career as pi- 
rates and robbers, and as pirates and robbers of the 
most desperate and dangerous description. In fact, 
the character which the Anglo-Saxons have obtained 
in modern times for energy and enterprise, and for 
desperate daring in their conflicts with foes, is no re- 
cent fame. The progenitors of the present race were 
celebrated every where, and every where feared and 
dreaded, not only in the days of Alfred, but several 
centuries before. All the historians of those days 



38 ALFRED THE GREAT [449 

that speak of them at all, describe them as univer- 
sally distinguished above their neighbors for their 
energy and vehemence of character, their mental and 
physical superiority, and for the wild and daring ex- 
peditions to which their spirit of enterprise and activ- 
ity were continually impelling them. They built 
vessels, in which they boldly put forth on the waters of 
the German Ocean or of the Baltic Sea on excursions 
for conquest or plunder. Like their present posterity 
on the British isles and on the shores of the Atlantic, 
they cared not, in these voyages, whether it was 
summer or winter, calm or storm. In fact, they 
sailed often in tempests and storms by choice, so as 
to come upon their enemies the more unexpectedly. 
They would build small vessels, or rather boats, of 
osiers, covering them with skins, and in fleets of 
these frail floats they would sally forth among the 
howling winds and foaming surges of the German 
Ocean. On these expeditions, they all embarked as 
in a common cause, and felt a common interest. 
The leaders shared in all the toils and exposures of 
the men, and the men took part in the counsels and 
plans of the leaders. Their intelligence and activity, 
and their resistless courage and ardor, combined with 
their cool and calculating sagacity, made them suc- 
cessful in every attempt. If they fought, they con- 
quered; if they pursued their enemies, they were 
sure to overtake them; if they retreated, they were 



449] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 39 

sure to make their escape. They were clothed in a 
loose and flowing dress, and wore their hair long 
and hanging about their shoulders; and they had the 
art, as their descendants have now, of contriving and 
fabricating arms of such superior construction and 
workmanship, as to give them, on this account alone, 
a great advantage over all cotemporary nations. 
There were two other points in which there was a 
remarkable similarity between this parent stock in its 
rude, early form, and the extended social progeny 
which represents it at the present day. One was the 
extreme strictness of their ideas of conjugal fidelity, 
and the stern and rigid severity with which all vio- 
lations of female virtue were judged. The woman 
who violated her marriage vows was compelled to 
hang herself. Her body was then burned in public, 
and the accomplice of her crime was executed over 
the ashes. The other point of resemblance between 
the ancient Anglo-Saxons and their modern descend- 
ants was their indomitable pride. They could never 
endure any thing like submission. Though sometimes 
overpowered, they were never conquered. Though 
taken prisoners and carried captive, the indomitable 
spirit which animated them could never be really 
subdued. The Romans used sometimes to compel 
their prisoners to fight as gladiators, to make specta- 
cles for the amusement of the people of the city. 
On one occasion, thirty Anglo-Saxons, who had been 



40 ALFRED THE GREAT [449 

taken captive and were reserved for this fate, strangled 
themselves rather than submit to this indignity. The 
whole nation manifested on all occasions a very un- 
bending and unsubmissive will, encountering every 
possible danger and braving every conceivable ill 
rather than succumb or submit to any power except 
such as they had themselves created for their own 
ends, and their descendants, whether in England or 
America, evince much the same spirit still. 

It was the landing of a few boat-loads of these 
determined and ferocious barbarians on a small island 
near the mouth of the Thames, which constitutes the 
great event of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in 
England, which is so celebrated in English history as 
the epoch which marks the real and true beginning 
of British greatness and power. It is true that the 
history of England goes back beyond this period to 
narrate, as we have done, the events connected with 
the contests of the Romans and the aboriginal Britons, 
and the incursions and maraudings of the Picts and 
Scots; but all these aborigines passed gradually — after 
the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons — off the stage. The 
old stock was wholly displaced. The present mon- 
archy has sprung entirely from its Anglo-Saxon orig- 
inal; so that all which precedes the arrival of this 
new race is introductory and preliminary, like the 
history, in this country, of the native American tribes 
before the coming of the English Pilgrims. As, there- 



449] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 41 

fore, the landing of the Pilgrims on the Plymouth 
Rock marks the true commencement of the history of 
the American Republic, so that of the Anglo-Saxon 
adventurers on the island of Thanet represents and 
marks the origin of the British monarchy. The event, 
therefore, stands as a great and conspicuous land- 
mark, though now dim and distant in the remote 
antiquity in which it occurred. 

And yet the event, though so wide-reaching and 
grand in its bearings and relations, and in the vast 
consequences which have flowed and which still con- 
tinue to flow from it, was apparently a minute and 
unimportant circumstance at the time when it oc- 
curred. There were only three vessels at the first 
arrival. Of their size and character the accounts 
vary. Some of these accounts say they contained 
three hundred men; others seem to state that the 
number which arrived at the first landing was three 
thousand. This, however, would seem impossible, as 
no three vessels built in those days could convey so 
large a number. We must suppose, therefore, that 
that number is meant to include those who came at 
several of the earlier expeditions, and which were 
grouped by the historian together, or else that several 
other vessels or transports accompanied the three, 
which history has specially commemorated as the first 
arriving. 

In fact, very little can now be known in respect to 



42 ALFRED THE GREAT [449 

the form and capacity of the vessels in which these half- 
barbarous navigators roamed, in those days, over the 
British seas. Their name, indeed, has come down to 
us, and that is nearly all. They were called cyules; 
though the name is sometimes spelled, in the ancient 
chronicles, ceols, and in other ways. They were ob- 
viously vessels of considerable capacity, and were of 
such construction and such strength as to stand the 
roughest marine exposures. They were accustomed 
to brave fearlessly every commotion and to encounter 
every danger, raised either by winter tempests or 
summer gales in the restless waters of the German 
Ocean. 

The names of the commanders who headed the 
expedition which first landed have been preserved, 
and they have acquired, as might have been expected, 
a very wide celebrity. They were Hengist and Horsa. 
Hengist and Horsa were brothers. 

The place where they landed was the island of 
Thanet. Thanet is a tract of land at the mouth of the 
Thames, on the southern side; a sort of promontory 
extending into the sea, and forming the cape at the 
south side of the estuary made by the mouth of 
the river. The extreme point of land is called the 
North Foreland which, as it is the point that thou- 
sands of vessels, coming out of the Thames, have 
to round in proceeding southward on voyages to 
France, to the Mediterranean, to the Indies, an4 



449] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 43 

to America, is very familiarly known to navigators 
throughout the world. The island of Thanet, of 
which this North Foreland is the extreme point, 
ought scarcely to be called an island, since it forms, 
in fact, a portion of the main land, being separated 
from it only by a narrow creek or stream, which ir^ 
former ages, indeed, was wide and navigable, but is 
now nearly choked up and obliterated by the sands 
and the sediment, which, after being brought down 
by the Thames, are driven into the creek by the 
surges of the sea. 

In the time of Hengist and Horsa the creek was 
so considerable that its mouth furnished a sufficient 
harbor for their vessels. They landed at a town 
called Ebbs-fleet, which is now, however, at some 
distance inland. 

There is some uncertainty in respect to the mo- 
tive which led Hengist and Horsa to make their first 
descent upon the English coast. Whether they came 
on one of their customary piratical expeditions, or 
were driven on the coast accidentally by stress of 
weather, or were invited to come by the British king, 
can not now be accurately ascertained. Such parties 
of Anglo-Saxons had undoubtedly often landed before 
under somewhat similar circumstances, and then, after 
brief incursions into the interior, had re-embarked on 
board their ships and sailed away. In this case, how- 
ever, there was a certain peculiar and extraordinary 



44 ALFRED THE GREAT [449 

state of things in the political condition of the coun- 
try in which they had landed, which resulted in first 
protracting their stay, and finally in establishing them 
so fixedly and permanently in the land, that they and 
their followers and descendants soon became the en- 
tire masters of it, and have remained in possession to 
the present day. These circumstances were as follows: 

The name of the king of Britain at this period 
was Vortigern. At the time when the Anglo-Saxons 
arrived, he and his government were nearly over- 
whelmed with the pressure of difficulty and danger 
arising from the incursions of the Picts and Scots; 
and Vortigern, instead of being aroused to redoubled 
vigilance and energy by the imminence of the danger, 
as Alfred afterward was in similar circumstances, sank 
down, as weak minds always do, in despair, and 
gave himself up to dissipation and vice — endeavor- 
ing, like depraved seamen on a wreck, to drown 
his mental distress in animal sensations of pleasure. 
Such men are ready to seek relief or rescue from 
their danger from any quarter and at any price. 
Vortigern, instead of looking upon the Anglo-Saxon 
intruders as new enemies, conceived the idea of ap- 
pealing to them for succor. He offered to convey to 
them a large tract of territory in the part of the is- 
land where they had landed, on condition of their 
aiding him in his contests with his other foes. 



449] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 45 

Hengist and Horsa acceded to this proposal. They 
marched their followers into battle, and defeated 
Vortigern's enemies. They sent across the sea to 
their native land, and invited new adventurers to join 
them. Vortigern was greatly pleased with the suc- 
cess of his expedient. The Picts and Scots were 
driven back to their fastnesses in the remote moun- 
tains of the north, and the Britons once more pos* 
sessed their land in peace, by means of the protection 
and the aid which their new confederates afforded them. 

In the mean time the Anglo-Saxons were estab- 
lishing and strengthening themselves very rapidly in 
the part of the island which Vortigern had assigned 
them, — which was, as the reader will understand from 
what has already been said in respect to the place of 
their landing, the southeastern part, — a region which 
now constitutes the county of Kent. In addition, too, 
to the natural increase of their power from the in- 
crease of their numbers and their military force, Hen- 
gist contrived, if the story is true, to swell his own 
personal influence by means of a matrimonial alliance 
which he had the adroitness to effect. He had a 
daughter named Rowena. She was very beautiful 
and accomphshed. Hengist sent for her to come to 
England. When she had arrived he made a sumptu- 
ous entertainment for King Vortigern, inviting also to 
it, of course, many other distinguished guests. In the 
midst of the feast, when the king was in the state of 



46 ALFRED THE GREAT [449 

high excitement produced on such temperaments by 
wine and convivial pleasure, Rowena came in to offer 
him more wine. Vortigern was powerfully struck, 
as Hengist had anticipated, with her grace and beauty. 
Learning that she was Hengist's daughter, he de- 
manded her hand. Hengist at first declined, but, after 
sufficiently stimulating the monarch's eagerness by his 
pretended opposition, he yielded, and the king became 
the general's son-in-law. This is the story which 
some of the old chroniclers tell. Modern historians are 
divided in respect to beheving it. Some think it is 
fact, others fable. 

At all events, the power of Hengist and Horsa 
gradually increased, as years passed on, until the Brit- 
ons began to be alarmed at their growing strength 
and multiplying numbers, and to fear lest these new 
friends should prove, in the end, more formidable 
than the terrible enemies whom they had come to 
expel. Contentions and then open quarrels began to 
occur, and at length both parties prepared for war. 
The contest which soon ensued was a terrible strug- 
gle, or rather series of struggles, which continued for 
two centuries, during which the Anglo-Saxons were 
continually gaining ground and the Britons losing; 
the mental and physical superiority of the Anglo- 
Saxon race giving them, with very few exceptions, 
every where and always the victory. 



53o] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 47 

There were, occasionally, intervals of peace, and 
partial and temporary friendliness. They accuse Hen- 
gist of great treachery on one of these occasions. He 
invited his son-in-law, King Vortigern, to a feast, 
with three hundred of his officers, and then fomenting 
a quarrel at the entertainment, the Britons were all 
killed in the affray by means of the superior Saxon 
force which had been provided for the emergency. 
Vortigern himself was taken prisoner, and held a cap- 
tive until he ransomed himself by ceding three whole 
provinces to his captor. Hengist justified this de- 
mand by throwing the responsibility of the feud 
upon his guests; and it is not, in fact, at all im- 
probable that they deserved their share of the condem- 
nation. 

The famous King Arthur, whose Knights of the 
Round Table have been so celebrated in ballads and 
tales, lived and flourished during these wars between 
the Saxons and the Britons. He was a king of the 
Britons, and performed wonderful exploits of strength 
and valor. He was of prodigious size and muscular 
power, and of undaunted bravery. He slew giants, 
destroyed the most ferocious wild beasts, gained very 
splendid victories in the battles that he fought, made 
long expeditions into foreign countries, having once 
gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to obtain the Holy 
Cross. His wife was a beautiful lady, the daughter of 



48 ALFRED THE GREAT [530 

a chieftain of Cornwall. Her name was Guenever.* 
On his return from one of his distant expeditions, he 
found that his nephew, Medrawd, had won her affec- 
tions while he was gone, and a combat ensued in 
consequence between him and Medrawd. The com- 
bat took place on the coast of Cornwall. Both par- 
ties fell. Arthur was mortally wounded. They took 
him from the field into a boat, and carried him along 
the coast till they came to a river. They ascended 
the river till they came to the town of Glastonbury. 
They committed the still breathing body to the care 
of faithful friends there; but the mortal blow had 
been given. The great hero died, and they buried 
his body in the Glastonbury churchyard, very deep 
beneath the surface of the ground, in order to place 
it as effectually as possible beyond the reach of Saxon 
rage and vengeance. Arthur had been a deadly and 
implacable foe to the Saxons. He had fought twelve 
great pitched battles with them, in every one of which 
he had gained the victory. In one of these battles he 
had slain, according to the traditional tale, four hun- 
dred and seventy men, in one day, with his own 
hand. 

Five hundred years after his death. King Henry the 
Second, having heard from an ancient British bard 
that Arthur's body lay interred in the Abbey of Glas- 
tonbury, and that the spot was marked by some small 

* Spelled sometimes Gwenlyfar and Ginevra. 



53o] THE ANGLO-SAXONS 49 

pyramids erected near it, and that the bod}' would be 
found in a rude coffin made of a hollowed oak, or- 
dered search to be made. The ballads and tales 
which had been then, for several centuries, circulating 
throughout England, narrating and praising King Ar- 
thur's exploits, had given him so wide a fame, that 
great interest was felt in the recovery and the identi- 
fication of his remains. The searchers found the 
pyramids in the cemetery of the abbey. They dug 
between them, and came at length to a stone. Be- 
neath this stone was a leaden cross, with the inscrip- 
tion in Latin, "Here lies buried the body of great 
King Arthur." Going down still below this, they 
came at length, at the depth of sixteen feet from the 
surface, to a great coffm, made of the trunk of an 
oak tree, and within it was a human skeleton of un- 
usual size. The skull was very large, and showed 
marks of ten wounds. Nine of them were closed by 
concretions of the bone, indicating that the wounds 
by which those contusions or fractures had been 
made had been healed while life continued. The 
tenth fracture remained in a condition which showed 
that that had been the mortal wound. 

The bones of Arthur's wife were found near those 
of her husband. The hair was apparently perfect 
when found, having all the freshness and beauty of 
life; but a monk of the abbey, who was present at 
the disinterment, touched it and it crumbled to dust. 

M. of H.— 15— 4 



so ALFRED THE GREAT [530 

Such are the tales which the old chronicles tell of 
the good King Arthur, the last and greatest repre- 
sentative of the power of the ancient British abo- 
rigines. It is a curious illustration of the uncertainty 
which attends all the early records of national history, 
that, notwithstanding all the above particularity re- 
specting the life and death of Arthur, it is a serious 
matter of dispute among the learned in modern times 
whether any such person ever lived. 




CHAPTER III. 

The Danes. 

Final subjugation of the Britons.— The Saxon Heptarchy.— Boldness and en- 
ergy of the Saxons. — Story of a Saxon princess. — Faithlessness of Radi- 
ger. — Indignation of the princess. — Radiger a prisoner. — He marries 
the princess. — The Danes. — Their habits and character. — Piratical hab- 
its of the Danes. — Younger sons of nobles. — Piratical excursions. — 
Booty and spoil.— Ragnar L,odbrog.— Harald.— Defeat of Ragnar.— Rag- 
nar invades France. — Incursions into Spain. — Ragnar's descent upon 
England. — He loses his ships. — Ragnar defeated by the Saxons. — His 
cruel death. — Danger of the Saxons. — Other invasions. — Plunder of 
I<ondon and other places. — Defeat of the Danes. — The sons and rela- 
tives of Ragnar. — Their plans and preparations. — The Danes winter in 
England.— Alarm of the Saxons.— Horrible death of Ella. — Ravages of 
the Danes. — Alfred. — His sudden elevation to power. 

THE landing of Hengist and Horsa, the first of 
the Anglo-Saxons, took place in the year 449, 
according to the commonly received chronol- 
ogy. It was more than two hundred years after this 
before the Britons were entirely subdued, and the 
Saxon authority established throughout the island, un- 
questioned and supreme. One or two centuries more 
passed away, and then the Anglo-Saxons had, in their 
turn, to resist a new horde of invaders, who came, 
as they themselves had done, across the German 
Ocean. These new invaders were the Danes. 

The Saxons were not united under one general 

(5>) 



52 ALFRED THE GREAT [450-850 

government when they came finally to get settled irr 
their civil polity. The English territory was divided, 
on the contrary, into seven or eight separate king- 
doms. These kingdoms were ruled by as many sep-^ 
arate dynasties, or lines of kings. They were con- 
nected with each other by friendly relations and 
alliances, more or less intimate, the whoje system 
being known in history by the name of the Saxon 
Heptarchy. 

The princes of these various dynasties showed in 
their dealings with one another, and in their relations 
with foreign powers, the same characteristics of bold- 
ness and energy as had always marked the action of 
the race. Even the queens and princesses evinced, by 
their courage and decision, that Anglo-Saxon blood 
lost nothing of its inherent qualities by flowing in fe- 
male veins. 

For example, a very extraordinary story is told of 
one of these Saxon princesses. A certain king upon 
the Continent, whose dominions lay between the 
Rhine and the German Ocean, had proposed for her 
hand in behalf of his son, whose name was Radiger. 
The consent of the princess was given, and the con- 
tract closed. The king himself soon afterward died, 
but before he died he changed his mind in respect to 
the marriage of his son. It seems that he had him- 
self married a second wife, the daughter of a king of 



450-850] THE DANES S3 

the Franks, a powerful continental people; and as, in 
consequence of his own approaching death, his son 
would come unexpectedly into possession of the 
throne, and would need immediately all the support 
which a powerful alliance could give him, he recom- 
mended to him to give up the Saxon princess, and 
connect himself, instead, with the Franks, as he him- 
self had done. The prince entered into these views; 
his father died, and he immediately afterward mar- 
ried his father's youthful widow — his own step- 
mother — a union which, however monstrous it would 
be regarded in our day, seems not to have been con- 
sidered any thing very extraordinary then. 

The Anglo-Saxon princess was very indignant at 
this violation of his plighted faith on the part of her 
suitor. She raised an army, and equipped a fleet, 
and set sail with the force which she had thus as- 
sembled across the German Ocean, to call the faith- 
less Radiger to account. Her fleet entered the mouth 
of the Rhine, and her troops landed, herself at the 
head of them. She then divided her army into two 
portions, keeping one division as a guard for herself 
at her own encampment, which she established near 
the place of her landing, while she sent the other 
portion to seek and attack Radiger, who was, in the 
mean time, assembling his forces, in a state of great 
alarm at this sudden and unexpected danger. 

In due time this division returned, reporting that 



54 ALFRED THE GREAT [450-850 

they had met and encountered Radiger, and had en- 
tirely defeated him. They came back triumphing in 
their victory, considering, evidently, that the faith- 
less lover had been well punished for his offense. 
The princess, however, instead of sharing in their 
satisfaction, ordered them to make a new incursion 
into the interior, and not to return without bringing 
Radiger with them as their prisoner. They did so; 
and after hunting the defeated and distressed king 
from place to place, they succeeded, at last, in seiz- 
ing him in a wood, and brought him in to the 
princess's encampment. He began to plead for his 
life, and to make excuses for the violation of his con- 
tract by urging the necessities of his situation and 
his father's dying commands. The princess said she 
was ready to forgive him if he would now dismiss 
her rival and fulfill his obligations to her. Radiger 
yielded to this demand; he repudiated his Frank wife, 
and married the Anglo-Saxon lady in her stead. 

Though the Anglo-Saxon race continued thus to 
evince in all their transactions the same extraordinary 
spirit and energy, and met generally with the same 
success that had characterized them at the beginnmg, 
they seemed at length to find their equals in the Danes. 
These Danes, however, though generally designated 
by that appellation in history, were not exclusively the 
natives of Denmark. They came from all the shores 



450-850] THE DANES ^S 

of the Northern and Baltic Seas. In fact, they inhab- 
ited the sea rather than the land. They were a race of 
bold and fierce naval adventurers, as the Anglo-Saxons 
themselves had been two centuries before. Most ex- 
traordinary accounts are given of their hardihood, and 
of their fierce and predatory habits. They haunted 
the bays along the coasts of Sweden and Norway, 
and the islands which encumber the entrance to the 
Baltic Sea. They were banded together in great 
hordes, each ruled by a chieftain, who was called a 
sea king, because his dominions scarcely extended at 
all to the land. His possessions, his power, his sub- 
jects pertained all to the sea. It is true they built or 
bought their vessels on the shore, and they sought 
shelter among the islands and in the bays in tempests 
and storms; but they prided themselves in never dwell- 
ing in houses, or sharing, in any way, the comforts 
or enjoyments of the land. They made excursions 
every where for conquest and plunder, and were 
proud of their successful deeds of violence and wrong. 
It was honorable to enter into their service. Chief- 
tains and nobles who dwelt upon the land sent their 
sons to acquire greatness, and wealth, and fame by 
joining these piratical gangs, just as high-minded mil- 
itary or naval officers, in modern times, would enter 
into the service of an honorable government abroad. 
Besides the great leaders of the most powerful of 
these bands, there was an infinite number of petty chief- 



S6 ALFRED THE GREAT [450-850 

tains, who commanded single ships or small detached 
squadrons. These were generally the younger sons of 
sovereigns or chieftains who lived upon the land, 
the elder brothers remaining at, home to receive the 
throne or the paternal inheritance. It was discredit- 
able then, as it is now in Europe, for any branches of 
families of the higher class to engage in any pursuit 
of honorable industry. They could plunder and kill 
without dishonor, but they could not toil. To rob 
and murder was glory; to do good or to be useful in 
any way was disgrace. 

These younger sons went to sea at a very early 
age too. They were sent often at twelve, that they 
might become early habituated to the exposures and 
dangers of their dreadful combats, and of the wintry 
storms, and inured to the athletic exertions which the 
sea rigorously exacts of all who venture within her 
dominion. When they returned they were received 
with consideration and honor, or with neglect and 
disgrace, according as they were more or less laden 
with booty and spoil. In the summer months the 
land kings themselves would organize and equip 
naval armaments for similar expeditions. They would 
cruise along the coasts of the sea, to land where 
they found an unguarded point, and sack a town or 
burn a castle, seize treasures, capture men and make 
them slaves, kidnap women, and sometimes destroy 
helpless children with their spears in a manner too 



450-850] THE DANES 57 

barbarous and horrid to be described. On returning 
to tiieir homes, they would perhaps find their own 
castles burned and their own dwellings roofless, from 
the visit of some similar horde. 

Thus the seas of western Europe were covered in 
those days, as they are now, with fleets of shipping; 
though, instead of being engaged, as now, in the 
quiet and peaceful pursuits of commerce, freighted 
with merchandise, manned with harmless seamen, 
and welcome wherever they come, they were then 
loaded only with ammunition and arms, and crowded 
with fierce and reckless robbers, the objects of uni- 
versal detestation and terror. 

One of the first of these sea kings who acquired 
sufficient individual distinction to be personally re- 
membered in history has given a sort of immortality, 
by his exploits, to the very rude name of Ragnar 
Lodbrog, and his character was as rude as his name. 

Ragnar's father was a prince of Norway. He 
married, however, a Danish princess, and thus Rag- 
nar acquired a sort of hereditary right to a Danish 
kingdom, — the ter.ntory including various islands and 
promontories at the entrance of the Baltic Sea. There 
was, however, a competitor for this power, named 
Harald. The Franks made common cause with Har- 
ald. Ragnar was defeated and driven away from the 
land. Though defeated, however, he was not sub- 



58 ALFRED THE GREAT [450-850 

dued. He organized a naval force, and made himself 
a sea king. His operations on the stormy element of 
the seas were conducted with so much decision and 
energy, and at the same time with so much system 
and plan, that his power rapidly extended. He 
brought the other sea kings under his control, and 
established quite a maritime empire. He made more 
and more distant excursions, and at last, in order to 
avenge himself upon the Franks for their interposition 
in behalf of his enemy at home, he passed through 
the Straits of Dover, and thence down the English 
Channel to the mouth of the Seine. He ascended this 
river to Rouen, and there landed, spreading through- 
out the country the utmost terror and dismay. From 
Rouen he marched to Paris, finding no force able to 
resist him on his way, or to defend the capital. His 
troops destroyed the monastery of St. Germain's, near 
the city, and then the King of the Franks, finding 
himself at their mercy, bought them off by paying a 
large sum of money. With this money and the other 
booty which they had acquired, Ragnar and his horde 
now returned to their ships at Rouen, and sailed 
away again toward their usual haunts among the 
bays and islands of the Baltic Sea. 

This exploit, of course, gave Ragnar Lodbrog's 
barbarous name a very wide celebrity. It tended, also, 
greatly to increase and establish his power. He 
afterward made similar incursions into Spain, and 



450-850] THE DANES 59 

finally grew bold enough to brave the Anglo-Saxons 
themselves on the green island of Britain, as the 
Anglo-Saxons had themselves braved the aboriginal 
inhabitants two or three centuries before. But Rag- 
nar seems to have found the Anglo-Saxon swords and 
spears which he advanced to encounter on landing in 
England much more formidable than those which 
were raised against him on the southern side of the 
Channel. He was destroyed in the contest. The 
circumstances were as follows: 

In making his preparations for a descent upon the 
English coast, he prepared for a very determined con- 
test, knowing well the character of the foes with 
whom he would have now to deal. He built two 
enorm.ous ships, much larger than those of the ordi- 
nary size, and armed and equipped them in the most 
perfect manner. He filled them with selected men, 
and sailing down along the coast of Scotland, he 
watched for a place and an opportunity to land. 
Winds and storms are almost always raging among 
the dark and gloomy mountains and islands of Scot- 
land. Ragnar's ships were^ caught in one of these 
gales and driven on shore. The ships were lost, but 
the men escaped to the land. Ragnar, nothing 
daunted, organized and marshaled them as an army, 
and marched into the interior to attack any force 
which might appear against them. His course led 



6o ALFRED THE GREAT [850 

him to Northumbria, the most northerly Saxon king- 
dom. Here he soon encountered a very large and 
superior force, under the command of Ella, the king; 
but, with the reckless desperation whi'-h so strongly 
marked his character, he advanced to attack them. 
Three times, it is said, he pierced the enemy's lines, 
cutting his way entirely through them with his little 
column. He was, however, at length overpowered. 
His men were cut to pieces, and he was himself taken 
prisoner. We regret to have to add that our cruel 
ancestors put their captive to death in a very bar- 
barous manner. They filled a den with poisonous 
snakes, and then drove the wretched Ragnar into it. 
The horrid reptiles killed him with their stings. It 
was Ella, the king of Northumbria, who ordered and 
directed this punishment. 

The expedition of Ragnar thus ended without 
leading to any permanent results in Anglo-Saxon his- 
tory. It is, however, memorable as the first of a 
series of invasions from the Danes, — or Northmen, as 
they are sometimes called, since they came from all 
the coasts of the Baltic and German Seas, — which, in 
the end, gave the Anglo-Saxons infinite trouble. At 
one time, in fact, the conquests of the Danes threat- 
ened to root out and destroy the Anglo-Saxon power 
from the island altogether. They would probably have 
actually effected this, had the nation not been saved 



851] THE DANES 61 

by the prudence, the courage, the sagacity, and the 
consummate skill of the subject of this history, as 
will fully appear to the reader in the course of future 
chapters. 

Ragnar was not the only one of these Northmen 
who made attempts to land in England and to plunder 
the Anglo-Saxons, even in his own day. Although 
there were no very regular historical records kept in 
those early times, still a great number of legends, 
and ballads, and ancient chronicles have come down 
to us, narrating the various transactions which oc- 
curred, and it appears by these that the sea kings 
generally were beginning, at this time, to harass the 
English coasts, as well as all the other shores to which 
they could gain access. Some of these invasions would 
seem to have been of a very formidable character. 

At first these excursions were made in the summer 
season only, and, after collecting their plunder, the 
marauders would return in the autumn to their own 
shores, and winter in the bays and among the islands 
there. At length, however, they grew more bold. 
A large band of them landed, in the autumn of 851, 
on the island of Thanet where the Saxons themselves 
had landed four centuries before, and began very 
coolly to establish their winter quarters on English 
ground. They succeeded in maintaining their stay 
during the winter, and in the spring were prepared 
for bolder undertakings still. 



62 ALFRED THE GREAT [851 

They formed a grand confederation, and collected 
a fleet of three hundred and fifty ships, galleys, and 
boats, and advanced boldly up the Thames. They 
plundered London, and then marched south to Canter- 
bury, which they plundered too. They went thence 
into one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms called Mercia, 
the inhabitants of the country not being able to oppose 
any effectual obstacle to their marauding march. Fi- 
nally, a great Anglo-Saxon force was organized and 
brought out to meet them. The battle was fought in 
a forest of oaks, and the Danes were defeated. The 
victory, however, afforded the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms 
only a temporary relief. New hordes were continually 
arriving and landing, growing more and more bold if 
they met with success, and but little daunted or dis- 
couraged by temporary failures. 

The most formidable of all these expeditions was 
one organized and commanded by the sons and rela- 
tives of Ragnar, whom, it will be recollected, the Sax- 
ons had cruelly killed by poisonous serpents in a 
dungeon or den. The relatives of the unhappy chief- 
tain thus barbarously executed were animated in their 
enterprise by the double stimulus of love of plunder 
and a ferocious thirst for revenge. A considerable 
time was spent in collecting a large fleet, and in 
combining, for this purpose, as many chieftains as 
could be induced to share in the enterprise. The 
story of their fellow-countryman expiring under the 



851] THE DANES 63 

stings of adders and scorpions, while his tormentors 
were exulting around him over the cruel agonies 
which their ingenuity had devised, aroused them to a 
frensy of hatred and revenge. They proceeded, 
however, very deliberately in their plans. They did 
nothing hastily. They allowed ample time for the 
assembling and organizing of the confederation. 
When all was ready, they found that there were eight 
kings and twenty earls in the alliance, generally the 
relatives and comrades of Ragnar. The two most 
prominent of these commanders were Guthrum and 
Hubba. Hubba was one of Ragnar's sons. At length, 
toward the close of the summer, the formidable ex- 
pedition set sail. They approached the English coast, 
and landed without meeting with any resistance. 
The Saxons seemed appalled and paralyzed at the 
greatness of the danger. The several kingdoms of 
the Heptarchy, though they had been imperfectly 
united, some years before, under Egbert, were still 
more or less distinct, and each hoped that the one 
first invaded would be the only one which would 
suffer; and as these kingdoms were rivals, and often 
hostile to each other, no general league was formed 
against what soon proved to be the common enemy. 
The Danes, accordingly, quietly encarnped, and made 
calm and deliberate arrangements for spending the 
winter in their new quarters, as if they were at home. 
During all this time, notwithstanding the coolness 



64 ALFRED THE GREAT [867 

and deliberation with which these avengers of their 
murdered countryman acted, the fires of their resent- 
ment and revenge were slowly but steadily burning, 
and as soon as the spring opened, they put them- 
selves in battle array, and marched into the dominions 
of Ella, Ella did all that it was possible to do to 
meet and oppose them, but the spirit of retaliation 
and rage which his cruelties had evoked was too 
strong to be resisted. His country was ravaged, his 
army was defeated, he was taken prisoner, and the 
dying terrors and agonies of Ragnar among the ser- 
pents were expiated by tenfold worse tortures which 
they inflicted upon Ella's mutilated body, by a proc- 
ess too horrible to be described. 

After thus successfully accomplishing the great 
object of their expedition, it was to have been hoped 
that they would leave the island and return to their 
Danish homes. But they evinced no disposition to 
do this. On the contrary, they commenced a course 
of ravage and conquest in all parts of England, which 
continued for several years. The parts of the country 
which attempted to oppose them they destroyed by 
fire and sword. They seized cities, garrisoned and 
occupied them, and settled in them as if to make 
them their permanent homes. One kingdom after 
another was subdued. The kingdom of Wessex 
seemed alone to remain, and that was the subject of 
contest. Ethelred was the king. The Danes advanced 



867] THE DANES 6^ 

into his dominions to attack him. In the battle that 
ensued, Ethelred was killed. The successor to his 
throne was his brother Alfred, the subject of this 
history, who thus found himself suddenly and unex- 
pectedly called upon to assume the responsibilities 
and powers of supreme command, in as dark and 
trying a crisis of national calamity and danger as can 
well be conceived. The manner in which Alfred 
acted in the emergency, rescuing his country from 
her perils, and laying the foundations, as he did, of 
all the greatness and glory which has since accrued 
to her, has caused his memory to be held in the 
highest estimation among all nations, and has immor- 
talized his name. 

M. ofH.— is-5 




CHAPTER IV. 
Alfred's Early Years. 

Alfred's early life.— Influences under which his character was formed.— Al- 
fred's father, Ethelwolf. — Monasteries. — Ethelwolf retires to a monas- 
tery. — He is released from his vows. — Ethelwolf's minister. — Ethelwolf's 
religious habits. — Alfred sent to Rome. — Pomp of the journey. — Ethel- 
wolf goes to Rome. — Arrangements for the journey. — Ethelwolf's 
retinue. — Presents to the pope. — Distribution of money.— Ethelwolf's 
resources. — Rome. — Its schools of learning. — The Saxon seminary 
burned. — Rebuilt by Ethelwolf. — Ethelwolf in France. — He falls in 
love with Judith. — Ethelwolf's death. — Ethelbald. — Alfred's character. 

— Judith's interest in him. — Alfred's fondness for Anglo-Saxon poetry. 

— Its character. — Alfred's inability to read. — The Anglo-Saxon manu- 
script.— Alfred desires to learn l,atin.— Latin literature. — Alfred's skill 
in hunting. — Ethelbald puts away his wife. — Judith returns to her native 
land.— She marries a third time. 

BEFORE commencing the narrative of Alfred's ad- 
ministration of the public affairs of his realm, 
it is necessary to go back a little, in order to 
give some account of the more private occurrences of 
his early life. Alfred, like Washington, was distin- 
guished for a very extraordinary combination of qual- 
ities which exhibited itself in his character, viz., the 
combination of great military energy and skill on the 
one hand, with a very high degree, on the other, of 
moral and religious principle, and conscientious de- 
votion to the obligations of duty. This combination, 

(66) 



850-855] EARLY YEARS 67 

so rarely found in the distinguished personages which 
have figured among mankind, is, in a great measure, 
explained and accounted for, in Alfred's case, by the 
peculiar circumstances of his early history. 

It was his brother Ethelred, as has already been 
stated, whom Alfred immediately succeeded. His 
father's name was Ethelwolf; and it seems highly 
probable that the peculiar turn which Alfred's mind 
seemed to take in after years, was the consequence, 
in some considerable degree, of this parent's situation 
and character. Ethelwolf was a younger son, and 
was brought up in a monastery at Winchester. The 
monasteries of those days were the seats both of 
learning and piety, that is, of such learning and piety 
as then prevailed. The ideas of religious faith and 
duty which were entertained a thousand years ago 
were certainly very different from those which are 
received now; still, there was then, mingled with 
much superstition, a great deal of honest and consci- 
entious devotion to the principles of Christian duty, 
and of sincere and earnest desire to live for the honor 
of God and religion, and for the highest and best 
welfare of mankind. Monastic establishments existed 
every where, defended by the sacredness which in- 
vested them from the storms of violence and war 
which swept over every thing which the cross did 
not protect. To these the thoughtful, the serious, 
and the intellectual retired, leaving the restless, the 



68 ALFRED THE GREAT [850-855 

rude, and the turbulent to distract and terrify the 
earth with their endless quarrels. Here they studied, 
they wrote, they read; they transcribed books, they 
kept records, they arranged exercises of devotion, 
they educated youth, and, in a word, performed, 
in the enclosed and secluded retreats in which 
they sought shelter, those intellectual functions of 
civil life which now can all be performed in open 
exposure, but which in those days, if there had been 
no monastic retreats to shelter them, could not have 
been performed at all. For the learning and piety of 
the present age, whether Catholic or Protestant, to 
malign the monasteries of Anglo-Saxon times is for 
the oak to traduce the acorn from which it sprang 

Ethelwolf was a younger son, and, consequently, 
did not expect to reign. He went to the monastery at 
Winchester and took the vows. His father had no ob- 
jection to this plan, satisfied with having his oldest 
son expect and prepare for the throne. As, however, 
he advanced toward manhood, the thought of the 
probability that he might be called to the throne in 
the event of his brother's death led all parties to de- 
sire that he might be released from his monastic vows. 
They applied, accordingly, to the pope for a dispen- 
sation. The dispensation was granted, and Ethelwolf 
became a general in the army. In the end his brother 
died, and he became king. 

He continued, however, during his reign, to mani- 



853] EARLY YEARS 6s 

fest the peaceful, quiet, and serious character which 
had led him to enter the monastery, and which 
had probably been strengthened and confirmed by the 
influences and habits to which he had been accus- 
tomed there. He had, however, a very able, energetic, 
and warlike minister, who managed his affairs with 
great ability and success for a long course of years. 
Ethelwolf, in the mean time, leaving public affairs 
to his minister, continued to devote himself to the 
pursuits to which his predilections inclined him. He 
visited monasteries; he cultivated learning; he en- 
dowed the Church; he made journeys to Rome. All 
this time, his kingdom, which had before almost 
swallowed up the other kingdoms of the Heptarchy, 
became more and more firmly established, until, at 
length, the Danes came in, as is described in the last 
chapter, and brought the whole land into the most 
extreme and imminent danger. The case did not, 
however, become absolutely desperate until after Ethel- 
wolfs death, as will be hereafter explained. 

Ethelwolf married a lady whose gentle, quiet, and 
serious character corresponded with his own. Alfred 
was the youngest, and, as is often the case with the 
youngest, the favorite child. He was kept near to his^ 
father and mother, and closely under their influence, 
until his mother died, which event, however, took 
place when he was quite young. After this, Ethel- 
wolf sent Alfred to Rome. Rome was still more the 



70 ALFRED THE GREAT [853 

great center then than it is now of religion and learn- 
ing. There were schools there, maintained by the 
various nations of Europe respectively, for the educa- 
tion of the sons of the nobility. Alfred, however, did 
not go for this purpose. It was only to make the 
journey, to see the city, to be introduced to the pope, 
and to be presented, by means of the fame of the ex- 
pedition, to the notice of Europe, as the future sov- 
ereign of England; for it was Ethelwolf's intention, at 
this time, to pass over his older sons, and make this 
Benjamin his successor on the throne. 

The journey was made with great pomp and 
parade. A large train of nobles and ecclesiastics ac- 
companied the young prince, and a splendid reception 
was given to him in the various towns in France 
which he passed through on his way. He was but 
five years old; but his position and his prospects 
made him, though so young, a personage of great 
distinction. After spending a short time at Rome, he 
returned again to England. 

Two years after this, Ethelwolf, Alfred's father, 
determined to go to Rome himself. His wife had 
died, his older sons had grown up, and his own nat- 
ural aversion to the cares and toils of government 
seems to have been increased by the alarms and dan- 
gers produced by the incursions of the Danes, and by 
his own advancing years. Having accordingly arranged 
the affairs of the kingdom by placing his oldest sons 



853] EARLY YEARS 71 

in command, he took the youngest, Alfred, who was 
now seven years old, with him, and, crossing the 
Channel, landed on the Continent, on his way to 
Rome. 

All the arrangements for this journey were con- 
ducted on a scale of great magnificence and splendor. 
It is true that it was a rude and semi-barbarous age, 
and very little progress had been made in respect to 
the peaceful and industrial arts of life; but, in respect 
to the arts connected with war, to every thing that 
related to the march of armies, the pomp and parade 
of royal progresses, the caparison of horses, the 
armor and military dresses of men, and the splendor 
and pageantry of military spectacles, a very consider- 
able degree of advancement had been attained. 

King Ethelwolf availed himself of all the resources 
that he could command to give eclat to his journey. 
He had a numerous train of attendants and followers, 
and he carried with him a number of rich and valu- 
able presents for the pope. He was received with 
great distinction by King Charles of France, through 
whose dominions he had to pass on his way to Italy. 
Charles had a daughter, Judith, a young girl, with 
whom Ethelwolf, though now himself quite advanced 
in hfe, fell deeply in love. 

Ethelwolf, after a short stay in France, went on to 
Rome. His arrival and his visit here attracted great 
attention. As King of England, he was a personage 



72 ALFRED THE GREAT [853 

of very considerable consequence, and then he came 
with a large retinue, and in magnificent state. His 
religious predilections, too, inspired him with a very 
strong interest in the ecclesiastical authorities and in- 
stitutions of Rome, and awakened, reciprocally, in 
these authorities, a strong interest in him. He made 
costly presents to the pope, some of which were pe- 
culiarly splendid. One was a crown of pure gold, 
which weighed, it is said, four pounds. Another was 
a sword, richly mounted in gold. There were also 
several utensils and vessels of Saxon form and con- 
struction, some of gold and others of silver gilt, and 
also a considerable number of dresses, all very richly 
adorned. King Ethelwolf also made a distribution in 
money to all the inhabitants of Rome: gold to the 
nobles and to the clergy, and silver to the people. 
How far his munificence on this occasion may have 
been exaggerated by the Saxon chroniclers, who, of 
course, like other early historians, were fond of mag- 
nifying all the exploits, and swelling, in every way, 
the fame of the heroes of their stories, we can not 
now know. There is no doubt, however, that all the 
circumstances of Ethelwolf s visit to the great capital 
were such as to attract universal attention to the 
event, and to make the little Alfred, on whose ac- 
count the journey was in a great measure performed, 
an object of very general interest and attention. 

In fact, there is every reason to believe that the 



854] EARLY YEARS 73 

Saxon nations had, at that time, made such progress 
in wealth, population, and power as to afford such a 
prince as Ethelwolf the means of making a great dis- 
play, if he chose to do so, on such an occasion as 
that of a royal progress through France and a visit 
to the great city of Rome. The Saxons had been in 
possession of England, at this time, many hundred 
years; and though, during all this period, they had 
been involved in various wars, both with one another 
and with the neighboring nations, they had been all 
the time steadily increasing in wealth, and making 
constant improvements in all the arts and refinements 
of life. Ethelwolf reigned, therefore, over a people of 
considerable wealth and power, and he moved across 
the Continent on his way to Rome, and figured 
while there, as a personage of no ordinary distinction. 
Rome was at this time, as we have said, the 
great center of education, as well as of religious and 
ecclesiastical influence. In fact, education and reli- 
gion went hand in hand in those days, there being 
scarcely any instruction in books excepting for the 
purposes of the Church. Separate schools had been 
established at Rome by the leading nations of Eu- 
rope, where their youth could be taught, each at an 
institution in which his own language was spoken. 
Ethelwolf remained a year at Rome, to give Alfred 
the benefit of the advantages which the city afforded. 
The boy was of a reflective and thoughtful turn of 



74 ALFRED THE GREAT [855 

mind, and applied himself diligently to the perform- 
ance of his duties. His mind was rapidly expanded, 
his powers were developed, and stores of such 
knowledge as was adapted to the circumstances and 
wants of the times were laid up. The religious and 
intellectual influences thus brought to bear upon the 
young Alfred's mind produced strong and decided 
effects in the formation of his character, — effects 
which were very strikingly visible in his subsequent 
career. 

Ethelwolf found, when he arrived at Rome, that 
the Saxon seminary had been burned the preceding 
year. It had been founded by a former Saxon king. 
Ethelwolf rebuilt it, and placed the institution on a 
new and firmer foundation than before. He also ob- 
tained some edicts from the papal government to 
secure and confirm certain rights of his Saxon subjects 
residing in the city, which rights had, it seems, been 
in some degree infringed upon, and he thus saved his 
subjects from oppressions to which they had been 
exposed. In a word, Ethelwolfs visit not only af- 
forded an imposing spectacle to those who witnessed 
the pageantry and the ceremonies which marked it, 
but it was attended with permanent and substantial 
benefits to many classes, who became, in consequence 
of it, the objects of the pious monarch's benevolent 
regard. 

At length, when the year had expired, Ethelwolf 



855] EARLY YEARS 75 

set out on his return. He went back through France, 
as he came, and during his stay in that country on 
the way home, an event occurred which was of no 
inconsiderable consequence to Alfred himself, and 
which changed or modified Ethelwolfs whole destiny. 
The event was that, having, as before stated, become 
enamored with the young Princess Judith, the daughter 
of the King of France, Ethelwolf demanded her in 
marriage. We have no means of knowing how the 
proposal affected the princess herself; marriages in 
that rank and station in life were then, as they are 
now, in fact, wholly determined and controlled by 
great political considerations, or by the personal pre- 
dilections of powerful men, with very little regard for 
the opinions or desires of the party whose happiness 
was most to be affected by the result. At all events, 
whatever may have been Judith's opinion, the marriage 
was decided upon and consummated, and the vener- 
able king returned to England with his youthful 
bride. The historians of the day say, what would 
seem almost incredible, that she was but about twelve 
years old. 

Judith's Saxon name was Leotheta. She made an 
excellent mother to the young Alfred, though she in- 
nocently and indirectly caused her husband much 
trouble in his realm. Alfred's older brothers were 
wild and turbulent men, and one of them, Ethelbald, 
was disposed to retain a portion of the power with 



76 ALFRED THE GREAT [855 

which he had been invested during his father's ab- 
sence, instead of giving it up peaceably on his return. 
He organized a rebellion against his father, making 
the king's course of conduct in respect to his youth- 
ful bride the pretext. Ethelwolf was very fond of his 
young wife, and seemed disposed to elevate her to a 
position of great political consideration and honor. 
Ethelbald complained of this. The father, loving peace 
rather than war, compromised the question with him 
and relinquished to him a part of his kingdom. Two 
years after this he died, leaving Ethelbald the entire 
possession of the throne. Ethelbald, as if to complete 
and consummate his unnatural conduct toward his 
father, persuaded the beautiful Judith, his father's 
widow, to become his wife, in violation not only 
of all laws human and divine, but also of those uni- 
versal instincts of propriety which no lapse of time 
and no changes of condition can eradicate from the 
human soul. This second union throws some light 
on the question of Judith's action. Since she was 
willing to marry her husband's son to preserve the 
position of a queen, we may well suppose that she 
did not object to uniting herself to the father in order 
to attain it. Perhaps, however, we ought to con- 
sider that no responsibility whatever, in transactions 
of this character, should attach to such a mere child. 
During all this time Alfred was passing from his 
eighth to his twelfth year. He was a very intelligent 



857] EARLY YEARS 77 

and observing boy, and had acquired much knowl- 
edge of the world and a great deal of general infor- 
mation in the journeys which he had taken with his 
father, both about England and also on the Conti- 
nent, in France and Italy. Judith had taken a great 
interest in his progress. She talked with him, she 
encouraged his inquiries, she explained to him what 
he did not understand, and endeavored in every way 
to develop and strengthen his mental powers. Alfred 
was a favorite, and, as such, was always very much 
indulged; but there was a certain conscientiousness 
and gentleness of spirit which marked his character 
even in these early years, and seemed to defend him 
from the injurious influences which indulgence and ex- 
treme attention and care often produce. Alfred was 
considerate, quiet, and reflective; he improved the priv- 
ileges which he enjoyed, and did not abuse the kind- 
ness and the favors which every one by whom he was 
known lavished upon him. 

Alfred was very fond of the Anglo-Saxon poetry 
which abounded in those days. The poems were 
legends, ballads, and tales, which described the ex- 
ploits of heroes, and the adventures of pilgrims and 
wanderers of all kinds. These poems were to Alfred 
what Homer's poems were to Alexander. He loved 
to Hsten to them, to hear them recited, and to com- 
mit them to memory. In committing them to mem- 
ory, he was obliged to depend upon hearing the 



78 ALFRED THE GREAT [857 

poems repeated by others, for he himself could not 
read. 

And yet he was now twelve years old. It may 
surprise the reader, perhaps, to be thus told, after all 
that has been said of the attention paid to Alfred's 
education, and of the progress which he had made, that 
he could not even read. But reading, far from being 
then considered, as it is now, an essential attainment 
for all, and one which we are sure of finding pos- 
sessed by all who have received any instruction 
whatever, was regarded in those days a sort of tech- 
nical art, learned only by those who were to make 
some professional use of the acquisition. Monks and 
clerks could always read, but generals, gentlemen, and 
kings very seldom. And as they could not read, 
neither could they write. They made a rude cross 
at the end of the writings which they wished to au- 
thenticate instead of signing their names, — a mode 
which remains to the present day, though it has de- 
scended to the very lowest and humblest classes of 
society. 

In fact, even the upper classes of society could 
not generally learn to read m those days, for there 
were no books. Every thing recorded was in man- 
uscripts, the characters being written with great labor 
and care, usually on parchment, the captions and 
leading letters being often splendidly illuminated and 
adorned by gilded miniatures of heads, or figures, or 



859] EARLY YEARS 79 

landscapes, which enveloped or surrounded them. 
Judith had such a manuscript of some Saxon poems. 
She had learned the language while in France. One 
day Alfred was looking at the book, and admiring the 
character in which it was written, particularly the 
ornamented letters at the headings. Some of his 
brothers were in the room, they, of course, being 
much older than he. Judith said that either of them 
might have the book who would first learn to read 
it. The older brothers paid little attention to this 
proposal, but Alfred's interest was strongly awakened. 
He immediately sought and found some one to teach 
him, and before long he read the volume to Judith, 
and claimed it as his own. She rejoiced at his 
success, and fulfilled her promise with the greatest 
pleasure. 

Alfred soon acquired, by his Anglo-Saxon studies, 
a great taste for books, and had next a strong desire 
to study the Latin language. The scholars of the va- 
rious nations of Europe formed at that time, as, in 
fact, they do now, one community, linked together 
by many ties. They wrote and spoke the Latin lan- 
guage, that being the only language which could be 
understood by them all. In fact, the works which 
were most highly valued then by the educated men 
of all nations, were the poems and the histories, and 
other writings produced by the classic authors of the 
Roman commonwealth. There were also many works 



8o ALFRED THE GREAT [860 

on theology, on ecclesiastical polity, and on law, of 
great authority and in high repute, all written in the 
Latin tongue. Copies of these works were made by 
the monks, in their retreats in abbeys and monaster- 
ies, and learned men spent their lives in perusing 
them. To explore this field was not properly a duty 
incumbent upon a young prince destined to take a 
seat upon a throne, but Alfred felt a great desire to 
undertake the work. He did not do it, however, for 
the reason, as he afterward stated, that there was 
no one at court at the time who was qualified to 
teach him. 

Alfred, though he had thus the thoughtful and re- 
flective habits of a student, was also active, and grace- 
ful, and strong in his bodily development. He ex- 
celled in all the athletic recreations of the time, and 
was especially famous for his skill, and courage, and 
power as a hunter. He gave every indication, in a 
word, at this early age, of possessing that uncommon 
combination of mental and personal qualities which 
fits those who possess it to secure and maintain a 
great ascendency among mankind. 

The unnatural union which had been formed on 
the death of Ethelwolf between his youthful widow 
and her aged husband's son did not long continue. 
The people of England were very much shocked at 
such a marriage, and a great prelate, the Bishop of 
Winchester, remonstrated against it with such stern- 



86o] EARLY YEARS 8i 

ness and authority, that Ethelbald not only soon put 
his wife away, but submitted to a severe penance 
which the bishop imposed upon him in retribution 
for his sin. Judith, thus forsaken, soon afterward 
sold the lands and estates which her two husbands 
had severally granted her, and, taking a final leave 
of Alfred, whom she tenderly loved, she returned to 
her native land. Not long after this, she was mar- 
ried a third time, to a continental prince, whose do- 
minions lay between the Baltic and the Rhine, and 
from this period she disappears entirely from the stage 
of Alfred's history. 

M. ofH— 15— 6 




CHAPTER V. 

State of England. 

The Danes. — Their hostility to Christianity.— Plunderings of the Danes.— 
Their cruelties to monks and nuns. — Abbey of Crowland. — Its ruins 
still remain. — A terrible battle. — Scene of consternation. — Proceedings 
at the monastery.— Part of the treasure sent away. — The remaining 
treasure concealed. — Abbot Theodore and the monks. — Slaughter of 
the abbot and monks. — The boy Turgar. — ^ The Danes plunder another 
abbey. — Escape of Turgar.— Story of King Edmund. — The Dane I<oth- 
broc. — The falcon. — Lothbroc driven across the German Ocean. — I,oth- 
broc taken into Edmund's service. — He is murdered by Beorn. — I<oth- 
broc's greyhound. — Beorn's punishment. — I,othbroc's sons. — Beorn's 
treachery. — Edmund captured by the Danes. — His martyrdom. — Ed- 
mund's friends come from their hiding places. — His head found. — 
Credulity of mankind. — Commingling of piety and superstition. — 
Peter- pence. — Veneration of the Catholic Church. — Kenelm. — He is 
murdered by order of his sister. — The dove and the writing. — The body 
found. 

HAVING thus brought down the narrative of Al- 
fred's early life as far and as fully as the 
records that remain enable us to do so, we 
resume the general history of the national affairs by 
returning to the subject of the depredations and con- 
quests of the Danes, and the circumstances connected 
with Alfred's accession to the throne. 

To give the reader some definite and clear ideas 
of the nature of this warfare, it will be well to de- 
scribe in detail some few of the incidents and scenes 
(82) 



86o] STATE OF ENGLAND 83 

which ancient historians have recorded. The follow- 
ing was one case which occurred: 

The Danes, it must be premised, were particularly 
hostile to the monasteries and religious establishments 
of the Anglo-Saxons. In the first place, they were 
themselves pagans, and they hated Christianity. In 
the second place, they knew that these places of 
sacred seclusion were often the depositories selected 
for the custody or concealment of treasure; and, be- 
sides the treasures which kings and potentates often 
placed in them for safety, these establishments pos- 
sessed utensils of gold and silver for the service of 
the chapels, and a great variety of valuable gifts, such 
as pious saints or penitent sinners were continually 
bequeathing to them. The Danes v/ere, consequently, 
never better pleased than when sacking an abbey or 
a monastery. In such exploits they gratified their 
terrible animal propensities, both of hatred and love, 
by the cruelties which they perpetrated personally 
upon the monks and the nuns, and at the same time 
enriched their coffers with the most valuable spoils. 
A dreadful tale is told of one company of nuns, who, 
in the consternation and terror which they endured 
at the approach of a band of Danes, mutilated their 
faces in a manner too horrid to be described, as the 
only means left to them for protection against the 
brutality of their foes. They followed, in adopting 



84 ALFRED THE GREAT [860 

this measure, the advice and the example of the lady 
superior. It was effectual. 

There was a certain abbey, called Crowland, which 
was in those days one of the most celebrated in the 
island. It was situated near the southern border of 
Lincolnshire, which lies on the eastern side of Eng- 
land. There is a great shallow bay, called The Wash, 
on this eastern shore, and it is surrounded by a broad 
tract of low and marshy land, which is drained by 
long canals, and traversed by roads built upon em- 
bankments. Dikes skirt the margins of the streams, 
and wind-mills are engaged in perpetual toil to raise 
the water from the fields into the channels by which 
it is conveyed away. 

Crowland is at the confluence of two rivers, which 
flow sluggishly through this flat but beautiful and 
verdant region. The remains of the old abbey still 
stand, built on piles driven into the marshy ground, 
and they form at the present time a very interesting 
mass of ruins. The year before Alfred acceded to the 
throne, the abbey was in all its glory; and on one 
occasion it furnished two hundred men, who went 
out under the command of one of the monks, named 
Friar Joly, to join the English armies and fight the 
Danes. 

The English army was too small notwithstanding 
this desperate effort to strengthen it. They stood, 



86o] STATE OF ENGLAND 85 

however, all day in a compact band, protecting them- 
selves with their shields from the arrows of the foot 
soldiers of the enemy, and with their pikes from the 
onset of the cavalry. At night the Danes retired, as 
if giving up the contest; but as soon as the Saxons, 
now released from their positions of confinement and 
restraint, had separated a little, and begun to feel 
somewhat more secure, their implacable foes returned 
again and attacked them in separate masses, and with 
more fury than before. The Saxons endeavored in 
vain either to defend themselves or escape. As fast 
as their comrades were kiiled, the survivors stood 
upon the heaps of the slain, to gain what little ad- 
vantage they could from so slight an elevation. 
Nearly all at length were killed. A few escaped into 
a neighboring wood, where they lay concealed during 
the day following, and then, when the darkness of 
the succeeding night came to enable them to conceal 
their journey, they made their way to the abbey, to 
make known to the anxious inmates of it the destruc- 
tion of the army, and to warn them of the immi- 
nence of the impending danger to which they were 
now exposed. 

A dreadful scene of consternation and terror en- 
sued. The affrighted messengers told their tale, 
breathless and wayworn, at the door of the chapel, 
where the monks v/ere engaged at their devotions. 
The aisles were filled with exclamations of alarm and 



86 ALFRED THE GREAT [860 

despairing lamentations. The abbot, whose name 
was Theodore, immediately began to take measures 
suited to the emergency. He resolved to retain at 
the monastery only some aged monks and a few 
children, whose utter defenselessness, he thought, 
would disarm the ferocity and vengeance of the Danes. 
The rest, only about thirty, however, in number, — 
nearly all the brethren having gone out under the 
Friar Joly into the great battle, — were put on board 
a boat to be sent down the river. It seems at first 
view a strange idea to send away the vigorous and 
strong, and keep the infirm and helpless at the scene 
of danger; but the monks knev/ very well that all 
resistance was vain, and that, consequently, their 
greatest safety would lie in the absence of all appear- 
ance of the possibility of resistance. 

The treasures were sent away, too, with all the 
men. They hastily collected ail the valuables together, 
the relics, the jewels, and all of the gold and silver 
plate which could be easily removed, and placed them 
in a boat — packing them as securely as their haste 
and trepidation allowed. The boats glided down the 
river till they came to a lonely spot, where an an- 
chorite or sort of hermit lived in solitude. The men 
and the treasures were to be intrusted to his charge. 
He concealed the men in the thickets and other hid- 
ing-places in the woods, and buried the treasures. 

In the mean time, as soon as the boats and the 



86o] STATE OF ENGLAND 87 

party of monks which accompanied them had left the 
abbey, the Abbot Theodore and the old monks that re- 
mained with him urged on the work of concealing that 
part of the treasures which had not been taken away. 
All of the plate which could not be easily transported, 
and a certain very rich and costly table employed for 
the service of the altar, and many sacred and expen- 
sive garments used by the higher priests in .their 
ceremonies, had been left behind, as they could not 
be easily removed. These the abbot and the monks 
concealed in the most secure places that they could 
find, and then, clothing i^iemselves in their priestly 
robes, they assembled in the chapel, and resumed their 
exercises of devotion. To be found in so sacred a 
place and engaged in so holy an occupation would have 
been a great protection from any Christian soldiery; 
but the monks entirely misconceived the nature of the 
impulses by which human nature is governed, in sup- 
posing thai it would have any restraining influence 
upon the pagan Danes. The first thing the ferocious 
marauders did, on breaking into the sacred precincts 
of the chapel, was to cut down the venerable abbot 
at the altar, in his sacerdotal robes, and then to push 
forward the work of slaying every other inmate of the 
abbey, feeble and helpless as they were. Only one 
was saved. 

This one was a boy, about ten years old. His name 
was Turgar. He was a handsome boy, and one of 



88 ALFRED THE GREAT [860 

the Danish chieftains was struck with his countenance 
and air, in the midst of the slaughter, and took pity 
on him. The chieftain's name was Count Sidroc. 
Sidroc drew Turgar out of the immediate scene of 
danger, and gave him a Danish garment, directing 
him, at the same time, to throw aside his own, and 
then to follow him wherever he went, and keep 
close to his side, as if he were a Dane. The boy, 
relieved from his terrors by this hope of protection, 
obeyed implicitly. He followed Sidroc every where, and 
his life was saved. The Danes, after killing all the oth- 
ers, ransacked and plundered the monastery, broke open 
the tombs in their search for concealed treasures, 
and, after taking all that they could discover, they 
set the edifices on fire wherever they could find wood- 
work that would burn, and went away, leaving the 
bodies slowly burning in the grand and terrible fu- 
neral pile. 

From Crowland the marauders proceeded, taking 
Turgar with them, to another large and wealthy 
abbey in the neighborhood, which they plundered 
and destroyed, as they had the abbey at Crowland. 
Sidroc made Turgar his own attendant, keeping him 
always near him. When the expedition had com- 
pleted their second conquest, they packed the valua- 
ables which they had obtained from both abbeys in 
wagons, and moved toward the south. It happened 
that some of these wagons were under Count Sidroc's 



86o] STATE OF ENGLAND 89 

charge, and were in the rear of the line of march. 
In passing a ford, the wheels of one of these rear 
wagons sank in the muddy bottom, and the horses, 
in attempting to draw the wagon out, became en- 
tangled and restive. While Sidroc's whole attention 
was engrossed by this difficulty, Turgar contrived to 
steal away unobserved. He hid himself in a neighbor- 
ing wood, and, with a degree of sagacity and discre- 
tion remarkable in a boy of his years, he contrived to 
find his way back to the smoking ruins of his home 
at the Abbey of Crowland. 

The monks who had gone away to seek conceal- 
ment at the cell of the anchorite had returned, and 
were at work among the smoking ruins, saving what 
they could from the fire, and gathering together the 
blackened remains of their brethren for interment. 
They chose one of the monks that had escaped to 
succeed the abbot who had been murdered, repaired, 
so far as they could, their ruined edifices, and mourn- 
fully resumed their functions as a religious community. 

Many of the tales which the ancient chroniclers 
tell of those times are romantic and incredible; they 
may have arisen, perhaps, in the first instance, in 
exaggerations of incidents and events which really 
occurred, and were then handed down from genera- 
tion to generation by oral tradition, till they found 
historians to record them. The story of the martyr- 
dom of King Edmund is of this character. Edmund 



90 ALFRED THE GREAT [860 

was a sort of king over one of the nations of Anglo- 
Saxons called East Angles, who, as their name im- 
ports, occupied a part of the eastern portion of the 
island. Their particular hostility to Edmund was 
awakened, according to the story, in the following 
manner: 

There was a certain bold and adventurous Dane 
named Lothbroc, who one day took his falcon on his 
arm and went out alone in a boat on the Baltic Sea, 
or in the straits connecting it with the German 
Ocean, intending to go to a certain island and hunt. 
The falcon is a species of hawk which they were ac- 
customed to train in those days, to attack and bring 
down birds from the air, and falconry was, as might 
have been expected, a very picturesque and exciting 
species of hunting. The game which Lothbroc was 
going to seek consisted of the wild fowl which fre- 
quents sometimes, in vast numbers, the cliffs and 
shores of the islands in those seas. Before he reached 
his hunting ground, however, he was overtaken by a 
storm, and his boat was driven by it out to sea. 
Accustomed to all sorts of adventures and dangers by 
sea and by land, and skilled in every operation re- 
quired in all possible emergencies, Lothbroc contrived 
to keep his boat before the wind, and to bail out the 
water as fast as it came in, until at length, after be- 
ing driven entirely across the German Ocean, he was 



86o] STATE OF ENGLAND 91 

thrown upon the EngHsh shore, where, with his 
hawk still upon his arm, he safely landed. 

He knew that he was in the country of the most 
deadly foes of his nation and race, and accordingly 
sought to conceal rather than to make known his ar- 
rival. He was, however, found, after a few days, 
wandering up and down in a solitary wood, and was 
conducted, together with his hawk, to King Edmund. 

Edmund was so much pleased with his air and 
bearing, and so astonished at the remarkable manner 
in which he had been brought to the English shore, 
that he gave him his Hfe; and soon discovering his 
great knowledge and skill as a huntsman, he received 
him into his own service, and treated him with great 
distinction and honor. In addition to his hawk, 
Lothbroc had a greyhound, so that he could hunt 
with the king in the fields as well as through the air. 
The greyhound was very strongly attached to his 
master. 

The king's chief huntsman at this time was Beorn, 
and Beorn soon became very envious and jealous of 
Lothbroc, on account of his superior power and skill, 
and of the honorable distinction which they procured 
for him. One day, when they two were hunting 
alone in the woods with their dogs, Beorn killed his 
rival, and hid his body in a thicket. Beorn went 
home, his own dogs following him, while the grey- 
hound remained to watch mournfully over the body 



92 ALFRED THE GREAT [860 

of his master. They asked Beorn what was become 
of Lothbroc, and he replied that he had gone off into 
the wood the day before, and he did not know what 
had become of him. 

In the mean time, the greyhound remained faith- 
fully watching at the side of the body of his master 
until hunger compelled him to leave his post in 
search of food. He went home, and, as soon as his 
wants were supphed, he returned immediately to the 
wood again. This he did several days; and at length 
his singular conduct attracting attention, he was fol- 
lowed by some of the king's household, and the body 
of his murdered master was found. 

The guilt of the murder was with little difficulty 
brought home to Beorn; and, as an appropriate pun- 
ishment for his cruelty to an unfortunate and home- 
less stranger, the king condemned him to be put on 
board the same boat in which the ill-fated Loth- 
broc had made his perilous voyage, and pushed out 
to sea. 

The winds and storms, entering, it seems, into 
the plan, and influenced by the same principles of po- 
etical justice as had governed the king, drove the 
boat, with its terrified mariner, back again across to 
the mouth of the Baltic, as they had brought Loth- 
broc to England. The boat was thrown upon the 
beach, on Lothbroc's family domain. 

Now Lothbroc had been, in his own country, a 



86o] STATE OF ENGLAND 93 

man of high rank and influence. He was of royal 
descent, and had many friends. He had two sons, 
men of enterprise and energy; and it so happened 
that the landing of Beorn took place so near to them, 
that the tidings soon came to their ears that their 
father's boat, in the hands of a Saxon stranger, had 
arrived on the coast. They immediately sought out 
the stranger, and demanded what had become of their 
father. Beorn, in order to hide his own guilt, fabri- 
cated a tale of Lothbroc's having been killed by Ed- 
mund, the king of the East Angles. The sons of the 
murdered Lothbroc were incensed at this news. 
They aroused their countrymen by calling upon them 
every where to aid them in revenging their father's 
death. A large naval force was accordingly collected, 
and a formidable descent made upon the English 
coast. 

Now Edmund, according to the story, was a hu- 
mane and gentle-minded man, much more interested 
in deeds of benevolence and of piety than in warlike 
undertakings and exploits, and he was very far from 
being well prepared to meet this formidable foe. In 
fact, he sought refuge in a retired residence called 
Heglesdune. The Danes, having taken some Saxons 
captive in a city which they had sacked and des- 
troyed, compelled them to make known the place of 
the king's retreat. Hinquar, the captain of the Danes, 
sent him a summons to come and surrender both 



94 ALFRED THE GREAT [860 

himself and all the treasures of his kingdom. Edmund 
refused. Hinquar then laid siege to the palace, and 
surrounded it; and, finally, his soldiers, breaking in, 
put Edmund's attendants to death, and brought Ed- 
mund himself, bound, into Hinquar's presence. 

Hinquar decided that the unfortunate captive should 
die. He was, accordingly, first taken to a tree and 
scourged. Then he was shot at with arrows, until, 
as the account states, his body was so full of the ar- 
rows that remained in the flesh that there seemed to 
be no room for more. During all this time Edmund 
continued to call upon the name of Christ, as if find- 
ing spiritual refuge and strength in the Redeemer in 
this his hour of extremity; and although these ejacu- 
lations afforded, doubtless, great support and comfort 
to him, they only served to irritate to a perfect 
frensy of exasperation his implacable pagan foes. 
They continued to shoot arrows into him until he 
was dead, and then they cut off his head and went 
away, carrying the dissevered head with them. Their 
object was to prevent his friends from having the 
satisfaction of interring it with the body. They car- 
ried it to what they supposed a sufficient distance, 
and then threw it off into a wood by the way-side, 
where they supposed it could not easily be found. 

As soon, however, as the Danes had left the place, 
the affrighted friends and followers of Edmund came 
out, by degrees, from their retreats and hiding places. 



Syo] STATE OF ENGLAND 95 

They readily found the dead body of their sovereign, 
as it lay, of course, where the cruel deed of his mur- 
der had been performed. They sought with mournful 
and anxious steps, here and there, all around, for the 
head, until at length, when they came into the wood 
where it was lying, they heard, as the historian who 
records these events gravely testifies, a voice issuing 
from it, calling them, and directing their steps by 
the sound. They followed the voice, and, having re- 
covered the head by means of this miraculous guid- 
ance, they buried it with the body.* 

It seems surprising to us that reasonable men 
should so readily believe such tales as these; but 
there are, in all ages of the world, certain habits of 
belief, in conformity to which the whole community 
go together. We all believe whatever is in harmony 
with, or analogous to, the general type of faith pre- 
vailing in our own generation. Nobody could be 
persuaded now that a dead head could speak, or a 



* A great many other tales are told of the miraculous phenomena 
exhibited by the body of St. Edmund, which well illustrate the super- 
stitious credulity of those times. One writer says seriously that, when 
the head was found, a wolf had it, holding it carefully in his paws, 
with all the gentleness and care that the most faithful dog would 
manifest in guarding a trust committed to him by his master. This 
wolf followed the funeral procession to the tomb where the body was 
deposited, and then disappeared. The head joined itself to the body 
again where it had been severed, leaving only a purple line to mark 
the place of separation. 



96 ALFRED THE GREAT [870 

wolf change his nature to protect it; but thousands 
will credit a fortune-teller, or believe that a mesmer- 
ized patient can have a mental perception of scenes 
and occurrences a thousand miles away. 

There was a great deal of superstition in the days 
when Alfred was called to the throne, and there was 
also, with it, a great deal of genuine honest piety. 
The piety and the superstition, too, were inextricably 
intermingled and corhbined together. They were all 
Catholics then, yielding an implicit obedience to the 
Church of Rome, making regular contributions in 
money to sustain the papal authority, and looking to 
Rome as the great and central point of Christian in- 
fluence and power, and the object of supreme ven- 
eration. We have already seen that the Saxons had 
established a seminary at Rome, which King Ethel- 
wolf, Alfred's father, rebuilt and re-endowed. One of 
the former Anglo-Saxon kings, too, had given a grant 
of one penny from every house in the kingdom to 
the successors of St. Peter at Rome, which tax, 
though nominally small, produced a very considerable 
sum in the aggregate, exceeding for many years the 
royal revenues of the kings of England. It continued 
to be paid down to the time of Henry VIII., when 
the reformation swept away that and all the other 
national obligations of England to the Catholic Church 
together. 

In the age of Alfred, however, there were not 



870] STATE OF ENGLAND 97 

only these public acts of acknowledgment recognizing 
the papal supremacy, but there was a strong tide of 
personal and private feeling of veneration and attach- 
ment to the mother Church, of which it is hard 
for us, in the present divided state of Christendom, 
to conceive. The religious thoughts and affections of 
every pious heart throughout the realm centered in 
Rome. Rome, too, was the scene of many miracles, 
by which the imaginations of the superstitious and of 
the truly devout were excited, which impressed them 
with an idea of power in which they felt a sort of 
confiding sense of protection. This power was con- 
tinually interposing, now in one way and now in 
another, to protect virtue, to punish crime, and to 
testify to the impious and to the devout, to each in 
an appropriate way, that their respective deeds were 
the objects, according to their character, of the dis- 
pleasure or of the approbation of Heaven. 

On one occasion, the following incident is said to 
have occurred. The narration of it will illustrate the 
ideas of the time. A child of about seven years old 
named Kenelm, succeeded to the throne in the Anglo- 
Saxon line. Being too young to act for himself, he 
was put under the charge of a sister, who was to act 
as regent until the boy became of age. The sister, 
ambitious of making the power thus delegated to her 
entirely her own, decided on destroying her brothc. 

M, of H.— 15— 7 



98 ALFRED THE GREAT [870 

She commissioned a hired murderer to perpetrate the 
deed. The murderer took the child into a wood, 
killed him, and hid his body in a thicket, in a cer- 
tain cow-pasture at a place called Gent. The sister 
then assumed the scepter in her own name, and sup- 
pressed all inquiries in respect to the fate of her 
brother; and his murder might have remained forever 
undiscovered, had it not been miraculously revealed at 
Rome. 

A white dove flew into a church there one day 
and let fall upon the altar of St. Peter a paper, on 
which was written, in Anglo-Saxon characters, 

■ffn Clent Cow*batcb, Uenelme ftinfl bearne, lietb unOec 
XLboxnc, bead bercavcJ). 

For a time nobody could read the writing. At 
length an Anglo-Saxon saw it, and translated it into 
Latin, so that the pope and all others could under- 
stand it. The pope then sent a letter to the authori- 
ties in England, who made search and found the 
body. 

But we must end these digressions, which we 
have pursued thus far in order to give the reader 
some distinct conception of the ideas and habits of 
the times, and proceed, in the next chapter, to relate 
the events immediately connected with Alfred's acces- 
sion to the throne. 



CHAPTKR VI. 

Alfred's Accession to the Throne. 

The Danes at Reading. — Situational Reading. — The Danish castle. — Ethel- 
red marches against the Danes. — The Danes fortify their castle. — They 
are defeated. — Defeat of the Saxons. — Preparations for another battle. — 
.a^scesdune. — The night before the battle. — Alfred musters his men. — 
Ethelred's religious services.— Reason for divine service. — The war a 
religious one. — Alfred's impetuosity. — His great ability. — Battle of ^s- 
cesdune. — Flight of the Danes. — Results of the battle. — Alfred and Eth- 
elred. — The old chronicles. — The locality of the battle. — The White 
Horse. — Death of Ethelred. — Alfred's popularity. — He is selected to suc- 
ceed Ethelred. — The Danes Strengthen themselves. — Their successes. — 
Death of Ethelred.— His burial at Wimborne. — The inscription. — Doubts 
in regard to Ethelred's death. 

T THE battle in which Alfred's brother, Ethel- 
red, whom Alfred succeeded on the throne 
was killed, as is briefly mentioned at the close 
of chapter fourth, Alfred himself, then a brave and 
energetic young man, fought by his side. The party 
of Danes whom they were contending against in this 
fatal fight was the same one that came out in the ex- 
pedition organized by the sons of Lothbroc, and 
whose exploits in destroying monasteries and con- 
vents were described in the last chapter. Soon after 
the events there narrated, this formidable body of 

..:r- (99) 




100 ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

marauders moved westward, toward that part of the 
kingdom where the dominions more particularly per- 
taining to the family of Alfred lay. 

There was in those days a certain stronghold or 
castle on the River Thames, about forty miles west 
from London, which was not far from the confines of 
Ethelred's dominions. The large and populous town 
of Reading now stands upon the spot. It is at the 
confluence of the River Thames with the Kennet, a 
small branch of the Thames, which here flows into it 
from the south. The spot, having the waters of the 
rivers for a defense upon two sides of it, was easily 
fortified. A castle had been built there, and, as usual 
in such cases, a town had sprung up about the walls. 

The Danes advanced to this stronghold and took 
possession of it, and they made it for some time their 
head-quarters. It was at once the center from which 
they carried on their enterprises in all directions about 
the island, and the refuge to which they could always 
retreat when defeated and pursued. In the possession 
of such a fastness, they, of course, became more for- 
midable than ever. King Ethelred determined to dis- 
lodge them. He raised, accordingly, as large a force 
as his kingdom would furnish, and, taking his brother 
Alfred as his second in command, he advanced to- 
ward Reading in a very resolute and determined 
manner. 

He first encountered a large body of the Danes 



871] ACCESSION TO THE THRONE loi 

who were out on a marauding excursion. This party 
consisted only of a small detachment, the main body 
of the army of the Danes having been left at Read- 
ing to strengthen and complete the fortifications. 
They were digging a trench from river to river, so as 
completely to insulate the castle, and make it en- 
tirely inaccessible on either side except by boats or a 
bridge. With the earth thrown out of the trench 
they were making an embankment on the inner side, 
so that an enemy, after crossing the ditch, would 
have a steep ascent to climb, defended too, as of 
course it would be in such an emergency, by long 
lines of desperate men upon the top, hurling at the as- 
sailants showers of javelins and arrows. 

While, therefore, a considerable portion of the 
Danes were at work within and around their castle, 
to make it as nearly as possible impregnable as a 
place of defense, the detachment above referred to had 
gone forth for plunder, under the command of some 
of the bolder and more adventurous spirits in the 
horde. This party Ethelred overtook. A furious bat- 
tle was fought. The Danes were defeated, and driven 
off the ground. They fled toward Reading. Ethelred 
and Alfred pursued them. The various parties of 
Danes that were outside of the fortifications, employed 
in completing the out works, or encamped in the 
neighborhood, were surprised and slaughtered; or, at 
least, vast numbers of them were killed, and the 



I02 ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

rest retreated within the works — all maddened at 
their defeat, and burning with desire for revenge. 

The Saxons were not strong enough to dispossess 
them of their fastness. On the contrary, in a few 
days, the Danes, having matured their plans, made a 
desperate sally against the Saxons, and, after a very 
determined and obstinate conflict, they gained the 
victory, and drove the Saxons off the ground. Some 
of the leading Saxon chieftains were killed, and the 
whole country was thrown into great alarm at the 
danger which was impending, that the Danes would 
soon gain the complete and undisputed possession of 
the whole land. 

The Saxons, however, were not yet prepared to 
give up the struggle. They rallied their forces, 
gathered new recruits, reorganized their ranks, and 
made preparations for another struggle. The Danes, 
too, feeling fresh strength and energy in consequence 
of their successes, formed themselves in battle array, 
and, leaving their strong-hold, they marched out into 
the open country in pursuit of their foe. The two 
armies gradually approached each other and prepared 
for battle. Every thing portended a terrible conflict, 
which was to be, in fact, the great final struggle. 

The place where the armies met was called in 
those times /Escesdune, which means Ashdown. It 
was, in fact, a hill-side covered with ash trees. The 
name has become shortened and softened in the course 



Syi] ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 103 

of the ten centuries which have intervened since this 
celebrated battle, into Aston; if, indeed, as is gen- 
erally supposed, the Aston of the present day is the 
locality of the ancient battle. 

The armies came into the vicinity of each other 
toward the close of the day. They were both eager 
for the contest, or, at least, they pretended to be so, 
but they waited until the morning. The Danes 
divided their forces into two bodies. Two kings 
commanded one division, and certain chieftains, called 
earls, directed the other. King Ethelred undertook to 
meet this order of battle by a corresponding distribu- 
tion of his own troops, and he gave, accordingly, to 
Alfred the command of one division, while he him- 
self was to lead the other. All things being thus 
arranged, the hum and bustle of the two great en- 
campments subsided at last, at a late hour, as the men 
sought repose under their rude tents, in preparation 
for the fatigues and exposures of the coming day. 
Some slept; others watched restlessly, and talked to- 
"^ether, sleepless under the influence of that strange 
excitement, half exhilaration and half fear, which pre- 
vails in a camp on the eve of a battle. The camp 
fires burned brightly all the night, and the sentinels 
kept vigilant watch, expecting every moment some 
sudden alarm. 

The night passed quietly away. Ethelred and 
Alfred both arose early. Alfred went out to arouse 



104 ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

and muster the men in his division of the encamp- 
ment, and to prepare for battle. Ethelred, on the other 
hand, sent for his priest, and. assembling the officers 
in immediate attendance upon him, commenced divine 
service in his tent, — the service of the mass, accord- 
ing to the forms and usages which, even in that early 
day, were prescribed by the Catholic Church. Alfred 
was thus bent on immediate and energetic action, 
while Ethelred thought that the hour for putting forth 
the exertion of human strength did not come until 
time had been allowed for completing, in the most 
deliberate and solemn manner, the work of imploring 
the protection of Heaven. 

Ethelred seems by his conduct on this occasion to 
have inherited from his father, even more than Alfred, 
the spirit of religious devotion at least so far as the 
strict and faithful observance of religious forms was 
concerned. There was, it is true, a particular reason 
in this case why the forms of divine service should 
be faithfully observed, and that is, that the war was 
considered in a great measure a religious war. The 
Danes were pagans. The Saxons were Christians. 
In making their attacks upon the dominions of Eth- 
elred, the ruthless invaders were animated by a spe- 
cial hatred of the name of Christ, and they evinced 
a special hostility toward every edifice, or institution, 
or observance which bore the Christian name. The 
3axons, therefore, in resisting them, felt that they 



871] ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 105 

were not only fighting for their own possessions and 
for their own lives, but that they were defending the 
kingdom of God, and that he, looking down from his 
throne in the heavens, regarded them as the cham- 
pions of his cause; and, consequently, that he would 
either protect them in the struggle, or, if they fell, 
that he would receive them to mansions of special 
glory and happiness in heaven, as martyrs who had 
shed their blood in his service and for his glory. 

Taking this view of the subject, Ethelred, instead 
of going out to battle at the early dawn, collected 
his officers into his tent, and formed them into a re- 
ligious congregation. Alfred, on the other hand, full 
of impetuosity and ardor, was arousing his men, an- 
imating them by his words of encouragement and by 
the influence of his example, and making, as ener- 
getically as possible, all the preparations necessary for 
the approaching conflict. 

In fact, Alfred, though his brother was king, and 
he himself only a lieutenant general under him, had 
been accustomed to take the lead in all the military 
operations of the army, on account of the superior 
energy, resolution, and tact which he evinced, even 
in this early period of his life. His brothers, though 
they retained the scepter, as it fell successively into 
their hands, relied mainly on his wisdom and courage 
in all their efforts to defend it, and Ethelred may 
have been somewhat more at his ease, in listening to 



io6 ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

the priest's prayers in his tent, from knowing that 
the arrangements for marshaling and directing a large 
part of the force were in such good hands. 

The two encampments of Alfred and Ethelred seem 
to have been at some little distance from each other. 
Alfred was impatient at Ethelred's delay. He asked 
the reason for it. They told him that Ethelred was 
attending mass, and that he had said he should on 
no account leave his tent until the service was con- 
cluded. Alfred, in the mean time, took possession of 
a gentle elevation of land, which now would give 
him an advantage in the conflict. A single thorn- 
tree, growing there alone, marked the spot. The 
Danes advanced to attack him, expecting that, as he 
was not sustained by Ethelred's division of the army, 
he would be easily overpowered and driven from his 
post. 

Alfred himself felt an extreme and feverish anxiety 
at Ethelred's delay. He fought, however, with the 
greatest determination and bravery. The thorn-tree 
continued to be the center of the conflict for a long 
time, and, as the morning advanced, it became more 
and more doubtful how it would end. At last, Ethel- 
red, having finished his devotional services, came 
forth from his camp at the head of his division, and 
advanced vigorously to his faltering brother's aid. 
This soon decided the contest. The Danes were 
overpowered and put to flight. They fled at first in. 



871] ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 107 

all directions, wiierever each separate band saw the 
readiest prospect of escape from the immediate ven- 
geance of their pursuers. They soon, however, all 
began with one accord to seek the roads which would 
conduct them to their stronghold at Reading. They 
were madly pursued, and massacred as they fled, by 
Alfred's and Ethelred's army. Vast numbers fell. 
The remnant secured their retreat, shut themselves up 
within their walls, and began to devote their eager 
and earnest attention to the work of repairing and 
making good their defenses. 

This victory changed for the time being the whole 
face of affairs, and led, in various ways, to very im- 
portant consequences, the most important of which 
was, as we shall presently see, that it was the means 
indirectly of bringing Alfred soon to the throne. As 
to the cause of the victory, or, rather, the manner in 
which it was accomplished, the writers of the times 
give very different accounts, according as their respec- 
tive characters incline them to commend, in man, a 
feeling of quiet trust and confidence in God when 
placed in circumstances of difficulty or danger, or a 
vigorous and resolute exertion of his own powers. 
Alfred looked for deliverance to the determined as- 
saults and heavy blows which he could bring to bear 
upon his pagan enemies with weapons of steel around 
the thorn-tree in the field. Ethelred trusted to his 
hope of obtaining, by his prayers in his tent, the ef- 



io8 ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

factual protection of Heaven; and they who have 
written the story differ, as they who read it will, on 
the question to whose instrumentality the victory is 
to be ascribed. One says that Alfred gained it by his 
sword. Another, that Alfred exerted his strength and 
his valor in vain, and was saved from defeat and de- 
struction only by the intervention of Ethelred, bring- 
ing with him the blessing of Heaven. 

In fact, the various narratives of these ancient 
events, which are found at the present day in the 
old chronicles that record them, differ always very 
essentially, not only in respect to matters of opinion, 
and to the point of view in which they are to be re- 
garded, but also in respect to questions of fact. Even 
the place where this battle was fought, notwithstand- 
ing what we have said about the derivation of Aston 
from y^scesdune, is not absolutely certain. There is 
in the same vicinity another town, called Ashbury, 
which claims the honor. One reason for supposing 
that this last is the true locality is that there are the 
ruins of an ancient monument here, which, tradition 
says, was a monument built to commemorate the 
death of a Danish chieftain slain here by Alfred. 
There is also in the neighborhood another very sin- 
gular monument, called The White Horse, which also 
has the reputation of having been fashioned to com- 
memorate Alfred's victories. The White Horse is a 
rude representation of a horse, formed by cutting 



Syi] ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 109 

away the turf from the steep slope of a hill, so as to 
expose a portion of the white surface of the chalky 
rock below of such a form that the figure is called a 
horse, though they who see it seem to think it might 
as well have been called a dog. The name, however, 
of The White Horse has come down with it from an- 
cient times, and the hill on which it is cut is known 
as The White Horse Hill. Some ingenious antiqua- 
rians think they find evidence that this gigantic profile 
was made to commemorate the victory obtained by 
Alfred and Ethelred over the Danes at the ancient 
i^scesdune. 

However this may be, and whatever view we may 
take of the comparative influence of Alfred's energetic 
action and Ethelred's religious faith in the defeat of 
the Danes at this great battle, it is certain that the 
results of it were very momentous to all concerned. 
Ethelred received a wound, either in this battle or in 
some of the smaller contests and collisions which fol- 
lowed it, under the effects of which he pined and 
lingered for some months, and then died. Alfred, by 
his decision and courage on the day of the battle, 
and by the ardor and resolution with which he 
pressed all the subsequent operations during the pe- 
riod of Ethelred's decline, made himself still more con- 
spicuous in the eyes of his countrymen than he had 
ever been before. In looking forward to Ethelred's 
approaching death, the people- accordingly, began to 



no ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

turn their eyes to Alfred as his successor. There 
were children of some of his older brothers living at 
that time, and they, according to all received prin- 
ciples of hereditary right, v/ould naturally succeed to 
the throne; but the nation seems to have thought 
that the crisis was too serious, and the dangers which 
threatened their country were too imminent, to justify 
putting any child upon the throne. The accession of 
one of those children would have been the signal for 
a terrible and protracted struggle among powerful rel- 
atives and friends for the regency during the minority 
of the youthful sovereign, and this, while the Danes 
remained in their strong-hold at Reading, in daily ex- 
pectation of new re-enforcements from beyond the 
sea, would have plunged the country in hopeless ruin. 
They turned their eyes toward Alfred, therefore, as the 
sovereign to whom they were to bow so soon as 
Ethelred should cease to breathe. 

In the mean time, the Danes, far from being sub- 
dued by the adverse turn of fortune which had be- 
fallen them, strengthened themselves in their fortress, 
made desperate sallies from their intrenchments, at- 
tacked their foes on every possible occasion, and kept 
the country in continual alarm. They at length so 
far recruited their strength, and intimidated and dis- 
couraged their foes, whose king and nominal leader, 
Ethelred, was now less able than ever to resist them, 
as to take the field again. They fought more pitched 



871] ACCESSION TO THE THRONE in 

battles; and, though the Saxon chroniclers who nar- 
rate these events are very reluctant to admit that the 
Saxons were really vanquished in these struggles, 
they allow that the Danes kept the ground which 
they successively took post upon, and the discour- 
aged and disheartened inhabitants of the country were 
forced to retire. 

In the mean time, too, new parties of Danes were 
continually arriving on the coast, and spreading them- 
selves in marauding and plundering excursions over 
the country. The Danes at Reading were re-enforced 
by these bands, which made the conflict between 
them and Ethelred's forces more unequal still. Alfred 
did his utmost to resist the tide of ill fortune, with 
the limited and doubtful authority which he held; but 
all was in vain. Ethelred, worn down, probably, 
with the anxiety and depression which the situation 
of his kingdom brought upon him, lingered for a 
time, and then died, and Alfred was by general con- 
sent called to the throne. This was in the year 871. 

It was a matter of moment to find a safe and se- 
cure place of deposit for the body of Ethelred, who, as 
a Christian slain in contending with pagans, was to 
be considered a martyr. His memory was honored 
as that of one who had sacrificed his life in defense 
of the Christian faith. They knew very well that 
even his lifeless remains would not be safe from the 
vengeance of his foes unless they were placed effec- 



112 ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

tually beyond the reach of these desperate marauders. 
There was, far to the south, in Dorsetshire, on the 
southern coast of England, a monastery, at Wimborne, 
a very sacred spot, worthy to be selected as a place 
of royal sepulture. The spot has continued sacred to 
the present day; and it has now upon the site, as is 
supposed, of the ancient monastery, a grand cathedral 
church or minster, full of monuments of former days, 
and impressing all beholders with its solemn architec- 
tural grandeur. Here they conveyed the body of 
Ethelred and interred it. It was a place of sacred se- 
clusion, where there reigned a solemn stillness and 
awe, which no Christian hostility would ever have 
dared to disturb. The sacrilegious paganism of the 
Danes, however, would have respected it but little, if 
they had ever found access to it; but they did not. 
The body of Ethelred remained undisturbed; and, 
many centuries afterward, some travelers who visited 
the spot recorded the fact that there was a monument 
there with this inscription: 

"IN HOC LOCO QUIESCIT CORPUS ETHELREDI REGIS WEST 
SAXONUM, MARTYRIS, QUI ANNO DOMINI DCCCLXXI., XXIII. 
APRILIS, PER MANUS DANORUM PAGANORUM, OCCUBUIT."* 

Such is the commonly received opinion of the 



*"Here rests the body of Ethelred, king of West Saxony, the 
Martyr, who died by the hands of the pagan Danes, on the 23rd of 
April, in the year of our Lord 871." 



Syi] ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 113 

death of Ethelred. And yet some of the critical histo- 
rians of modern times, who find cause to doubt or 
disbelieve a very large portion of what is stated in 
ancient records, attempt to prove that Ethelred was 
not killed by the Danes at all, but that he died of the 
plague, which terrible disease was at that time pre- 
vailing in that part of England. At all events, he 
died, and Alfred, his brother, was called to reign in 
his stead. 

M. ofH.— 15— 8 




CHAPTER VII. 
Reverses. 

Alfred's reluctance to receive the crown. — His nephew.— Ethelred's funeral. — 
Coronation of Alfred at Winchester.— The Bishop of Winchester. — Alfred 
takes the field against the Danes.— Battle at Wilton. — Defeat of Alfred. 

— Treaty with the Danes. — They march into Mercia. — Buthred's mis- 
fortunes. — He buys off the Danes. — Buthred's unhappy end. — Ceolwulf. 

— Halfden arrives in England. — Alfred's castle at Wareham. — Wareham 
Castle taken by Halfden. — Contests and truces.- The town of Exeter. — 
It is taken by the Danes. — Serious charges against Alfred. — Love of 
pleasure. — Saint Neot. — He reproaches Alfred with his misdeeds. — Jus- 
tice of Neot's reproaches.— Alfred's early sins atoned for. — Alfred arouses 
himself.— Convenes an assembly of chiefs and nobles. — Alfred builds a 
fleet. — Difficulty of procuring seamen. — Success of Alfred's fleet.- Suc- 
cession of battles and treaties.- The Danish oath.— Christian relics. — 
The story of Rollo.— His famous exploits.— The Danes generally success- 
ful. — Alfred's distress. 

THE historians say that Alfred was very unwill- 
ing to assume the crown when the death of 
Ethelred presented it to him. If it had been 
an object of ambition or desire, there would probably 
have been a rival claimant, whose right would per- 
haps have proved superior to his own, since it ap- 
pears that one or more of the brothers who reigned 
before him left a son, whose claim to the inheritance, 
if the inheritance had been worth claiming, would 
have been stronger than that of their uncle. The son 
(H4) 



871] REVERSES 115 

of the oldest son takes precedence always of the 
brother, for hereditary rights, like water, never move 
laterally so long as they can continue to descend. 

The nobles, however, and chieftains, and all the 
leading powers of the kingdom of Wessex, which 
was the particular kingdom which descended from 
Alfred's ancestors, united to urge Alfred to take the 
throne. His father had, indeed, designated him as 
the successor of his brothers by his will, though how 
far a monarch may properly control by his will the 
disposal of his realm, is a matter of great uncertainty. 
Alfred yielded at length to these solicitations, and de- 
termined on assuming the sovereign power. He first 
went to Wimborne to attend to the funeral solemnities 
which were to be observed at his royal brother's bur- 
ial. He then went to Winchester, which, as well as 
Wimborne, is in the south of England, to be crowned 
and anointed king. Winchester was, even in those 
early days, a great ecclesiastical center. It was for 
some time the capital of the West Saxon realm. It 
was a very sacred place, and the crown was there 
placed upon Alfred's head, with the most imposing 
and solemn ceremonies. It is a curious and remark- 
able fact, that the spots which were consecrated in 
those early days by the religious establishments of 
the times, have preserved in almost every case their 
sacredness to the present ^day. Winchester is now 
famed all over England for its great Cathedral church, 



ii6 ALFRED THE GREAT [871 

and the vast religious establishment which has its 
seat there, the annual revenues and expenditures of 
which far exceed those of many of the states of this 
Union. The income of the bishop alone was for 
many years double that of the salary of the President 
of the United States, The Bishop of Winchester is 
widely celebrated, therefore, all over England, for his 
wealth, his ecclesiastical power, the architectural gran- 
deur of the Cathedral church, and the wealth and 
importance of the college of ecclesiastics over which 
he presides. 

It was in Winchester that Alfred was crowned. 
As soon as the ceremony was performed, he took the 
field, collected his forces, and went to meet the 
Danes again. He found the country in a most de- 
plorable condition. The Danes had extended and 
strengthened their positions. They had got posses- 
sion of many of the towns, and, not content with 
plundering castles and abbeys, they had seized lands, 
and were beginning to settle upon them, as if they 
intended to make Alfred's new kingdom their perma- 
nent abode. The forces of the Saxons, on the. other 
hand, were scattered and discouraged. There seemed 
no hope left to them of making head against their 
pestiferous invaders. If they were defeated, their 
cruel conquerors showed no moderation and no mercy 
in their victory; and if they conquered, it was only 
to suppress for a moment one horde, with a certainty 



rcn. an: 



ALFRED AND ETHELWAITHA 



871] REVERSES 117 

of being attacked immediately by another, more re- 
cently arrived, and more determined and relentless 
than those before them. 

Alfred succeeded, however, by means of the in- 
fluence of his personal character, and by the very 
active and efficient exertions that he made, in con- 
centrating what forces remained, and in preparing for 
a renewal of the contest. The first great battle that 
was fought was at Wilton. This was within a 
month of his accession to the throne. The battle 
was very obstinately fought; at the first onset Alfred's 
troops carried all before them, and there was every 
prospect that he would win the day. In the end, 
however, the tide of victory turned in favor of the 
Danes, and Alfred and his troops were driven from 
the field. There was an immense loss on both sides. 
In fact, both armies were, for the time, pretty effec- 
tually disabled, and each seems to have shrunk from a 
renewal of the contest. Instead, therefore, of fighting 
again, the two commanders entered into negotiations. 
Hubba was the name of the Danish chieftain. In the 
end, he made a treaty with Alfred, by which he 
agreed to retire from Alfred's dominions, and leave 
him in peace, provided that Alfred would not interfere 
with him in his wars in any other part of England. 
Alfred's kingdom was Wessex. Besides Wessex, 
there was Essex, Mercia, and Northumberland. Hubba 
and his Danes finding that Alfred was likely to prove 



ii8 ALFRED THE GREAT [872 

too formidable an antagonist for them easily to sub- 
due, thought it would be most prudent to give up 
one kingdom out of the four, on condition of not 
having Alfred to contend against in their depredations 
upon the other three. They accordingly made the 
treaty, and the Danes withdrew. They evacuated 
their posts and strong-holds in Wessex, and went 
down the Thames to London, which was in Mercia, 
and there commenced a new course of conquest and 
plunder, where they had no such powerful foe to op- 
pose them, 

Buthred was the king of Mercia. He could not 
resist Hubba and his Danes alone, and he could not 
now have Alfred's assistance. Alfred was censured 
very much at the time, and has been condemned 
often since, for having thus made a separate peace 
for himself and his own immediate dominions, and 
abandoned his natural allies and friends, the people 
of the other Saxon kingdoms. To make a peace with 
savage and relentless pagans, on the express condi- 
tion of leaving his fellow-Christian neighbors at their 
mercy, has been considered ungenerous, at least, if it 
was not unjust. On the other hand, those who vin- 
dicate his conduct maintain that it was his duty to 
secure the peace and welfare of his own realm, leav- 
ing other sovereigns to take care of theirs; and that 
he would have done very wrong to sacrifice the 
property and lives of his own immediate subjects to 



874] REVERSES 119 

a mere point of honor, when it was utterly out of 
his power to protect them and his neighbors too. 

However this may be, Buthred, finding that he 
could not have Alfred's aid, and that he could not 
protect his kingdom by any force which he could 
himself bring into the field, tried negotiations too, 
and he succeeded in buying off the Danes with money. 
He paid them a large sum, on condition of their 
leaving his dominions finally and forever, and not 
coming to molest him any more. Such a measure as 
this is always a very desperate and hopeless one. 
Buying off robbers, or beggars, or false accusers, or 
oppressors of any kind, is only to encourage them to 
come again, after a brief interval, under some frivo- 
lous pretext, with fresh demands or new oppressions, 
that they may be bought off again with higher pay. 
At least Buthred found it so in this case. Hubba 
went northward for a time, into the kingdom of 
Northumberland, and, after various conquests and 
plunderings there, he came back again into Mercia, 
on the plea that there was a scarcity of provisions in 
the northern kingdom, and he was obliged to come 
back. Buthred bought him off again with a larger 
sum of money. Hubba scarcely left the kingdom this 
time, but spent the money with his army, in carous- 
ings and excesses, and then went to robbing and 
plundering as before. Buthred, at last, reduced to 
despair, and seeing no hope of escape from the terri- 



I20 ALFRED THE GREAT [874 

ble pest with which his kingdom was infested, aban- 
doned the country and escaped to Rome. They 
received him as an exiled monarch in the Saxon 
school, where he soon after died a prey to grief and 
despair. 

The Danes overturned what remained of Buthred's 
government. They destroyed a famous mausoleum, 
the ancient burial place of the Mercian kings. This 
devastation of the abodes of the dead was a sort of 
recreation — a savage amusement, to vary the more 
serious and dangerous excitements attending their con- 
tests with the living. They found an officer of Buth- 
red's government named Ceolwulf, who, though a 
Saxon, was willing, through his love of place and 
power, to accept of the office of king in subordi- 
nation to the Danes, and hold it at their disposal, 
paying an annual tribute to them. Ceolwulf was 
execrated by his countrymen, who considered him a 
traitor. He, in his turn, oppressed and tyrannized 
over them. 

In the mean time, a new leader, with a fresh horde 
of Danes, had landed in England. His name was 
Halfden. Halfden came with a considerable fleet of 
ships, and, after landing his men, and performing vari- 
ous exploits and encountering various adventures in 
other parts of England, he began to turn his thoughts 
toward Alfred's dominions. Alfred did not pay par- 
ticular attention to Halfden's movements at first, as 



874] REVERSES 121 

he supposed that his treaty with Hubba had bound 
the whole nation of the Danes not to encroach upon 
his realm, whatever they might do in respect to the 
other Saxon kingdoms. Alfred had a famous castle 
at Wareham, on the southern coast of the island. It 
was situated on a bay which lies in what is now 
Dorsetshire. This castle was the strongest place in 
his dominions. It was garrisoned and guarded, but 
not with any special vigilance, as no one expected an 
attack upon it. Halfden brought his fleet to the south- 
ern shore of the island, and, organizing an expedition 
there, he put to sea, and before any one suspected 
his design, he entered the bay, surprised and attacked 
Wareham Castle, and took it. Alfred and the people 
of his realm were not only astonished and alarmed 
at the loss of the castle, but they were filled with 
indignation at the treachery of the Danes in violating 
their treaty by attacking it. Halfden said, however, 
that he was an independent chieftain, acting in his 
own name, and was not bound at all by any obliga- 
tions entered into by Hubba! 

There followed after this a series of contests and 
truces, during which treacherous wars alternated with 
still more treacherous and illusive periods of peace, 
neither party, on the whole, gaining any decided 
victory. The Danes, at one time, after agreeing upon 
a cessation of hostilities, suddenly fell upon a large 
squadron of Alfred's horse, who, relying on the truce, 



122 ALFRED THE GREAT [874 

were moving across the country too much off their 
guard. The Danes dismounted and drove off the men, 
and seized the horses, and thus provided themselves 
with cavalry, a species of force which it is obvious 
they could not easily bring, in any ships which they 
could then construct, across the German Ocean. With- 
out waiting for Alfred to recover from the surprise 
and consternation which this unexpected treachery 
occasioned, the newly-mounted troop of Danes rode 
rapidly along the southern coast of England till they 
came to the town of Exeter. Its name was in those 
days Exancester. It was then, as it is now, a very 
important town. It has since acquired a mournful 
celebrity as the place of refuge, and the scene of suf- 
fering of Queen Henrietta Maria, the mother of Charles, 
the Second.* The loss of this place was a new and 
heavy cloud over Alfred's prospects. It placed the 
whole southern coast of his realm in the hands of his 
enemies, and seemed to portend for the whole interior 
of the country a period of hopeless and irremediable 
calamity. 

It seems, too, from various unequivocal statements 
and allusions contained in the narratives of the times, 
that Alfred did not possess, during this period of his 
reign, the respect and affection of his subjects. He is 
accused, or, rather, not directly accused, but spoken of 

* For an account of Henrietta's adventures and sufferings at Exeter, 
see the history of Charles II., chap, iii. 



874] REVERSES 123 

as generally known to be guilty of many faults which 
alienated the hearts of his countrymen from him, and 
prepared them to consider his calamities as the judg- 
ments of Heaven. He was young and ardent, full of 
youthful impetuosity and fire, and was elated at his 
elevation to the throne; and, during the period while 
the Danes left him in peace, under the treaties he had 
made with Hubba, he gave himself up to pleasure, 
and not always to innocent pleasure. They charged 
him, too, with being tyrannical and oppressive in his 
government, being so devoted to gratifying his own 
ambition and love of personal indulgence that he 
neglected his government, sacrificed the interests and 
the welfare of his subjects, and exercised his regal 
powers in a very despotic and arbitrary manner. 

It is very difficult to decide, at this late day, how 
far this disposition to find fault with Alfred's early 
administration of his government arose from, or was 
aggravated by, the misfortunes and calamities which 
befell him. On the one hand, it would not be sur- 
prising if, young, and arduous, and impetuous as he 
was at this period of his life, he should have fallen 
into the errors and faults which youthful monarchs 
are very prone to commit on being suddenly raised to 
power. But then, on the other hand, men are prone, 
in all ages of the world, and most especially in such 
rude and uncultivated times as these were, to judge 
military and governmental action by the sole criterion 



124 ALFRED THE GREAT [874 

of success. Thus, when they found that Alfred's 
measures, one after another, failed in protecting his 
country, that the impending calamities burst succes- 
sively upon them, notwithstanding all Alfred's efforts 
to avert them, it was natural that they should look at 
and exaggerate his faults, and charge all their national 
misfortunes to the influence of them. 

There was a certain Saint Neot, a kinsman and 
religious counselor of Alfred, the history of whose 
life was afterward written by the Abbot of Crowland, 
the monastery whose destruction by the Danes was 
described in a former chapter. In this narrative it is 
said that Neot often rebuked Alfred in the severest 
terms for his sinful course of life, predicting the most 
fatal consequences if he did not reform, and using 
language which only a very culpable degree of re- 
missness and irregularity could justify. "You glory," 
said he, one day, when addressing the king, " in your 
pride and power, and are determined and obdurate in 
your iniquity. But there is a terrible retribution in 
store for you. I entreat you to listen to my counsels, 
amend your life, and govern your people with mod- 
eration and justice, instead of tyranny and oppression, 
and thus avert if you can, before it is too late, the 
impending judgments of Heaven." 

Such language as this it is obvious that only a 
very serious dereliction of duty on Alfred's part could 
call for or justify; but, whatever he may have done 



875] REVERSES 125 

to deserve it, his offenses were so fully expiated by 
his subsequent sufferings, and he atoned for them so 
nobly, too, by the wisdom, the prudence, the faithful 
and devoted patriotism of his career, that mankind 
have been disposed to pass by the faults of his early 
years without attempting to scrutinize them too 
closely. The noblest human spirits are always, in 
some periods of their existence, or in some aspects of 
their characters, strangely weakened by infirmities and 
frailties, and deformed by sin. This is human nature. 
We like to imagine that we find exceptions, and to 
see specimens of moral perfection in our friends or 
in the historical characters whose general course 
of action we admire ; but there are no exceptions. 
To err and to sin, at some times and in some 
ways, is the common, universal, and inevitable lot of 
humanity. 

At the time when Halfden and his followers 
seized Wareham Castle and Exeter, Alfred had been 
several years upon the throne, during which time 
these derelictions from duty took place, so far as they 
existed at all. But now, alarmed at the imminence of 
the impending danger, which threatened not only the 
welfare of his people, but his own kingdom and even 
his life, — for one Saxon monarch had been driven 
from his dominions, as we have seen, and had died a 
miserable exile at Rome, — Alfred aroused himself in 
earnest to the work of regaining his lost influence 



126 ALFRED THE GREAT [875 

among his people, and recovering their alienated af- 
fections. 

He accordingly, as his first step, convened a great 
assembly of the leading chieftains and noblemen of 
the realm, and made addresses to them, in which he 
urged upon them the imminence of the danger which 
threatened their common country, and pressed them 
to unite vigorously and energetically with him to 
contend against their common foe. They must make 
great sacrifices, he said, both of their comfort and 
ease, as well as of their wealth, to resist successfully 
so imminent a danger. He summoned them to arms, 
and urged them to contribute the means necessary 
to pay the expense of a vigorous prosecution of the 
war. These harangues, and the ardor and determin- 
ation which Alfred manifested himself at the time of 
making them, were successful. The nation aroused 
itself to new exertions, and for a time there was a 
prospect that the country would be saved. 

Among the other measures to which Alfred re- 
sorted in this emergency was the attempt to encoun- 
ter the Danes upon their own element, by building 
and equipping a fleet of ships, with which to pro- 
ceed to sea, in order to meet and attack upon the 
water certain new bodies of invaders, who were on 
the way to join the Danes already on the island — 
coming, as rumor said, along the southern shore. In 
attempting to build up a naval power, the greatest 



875] REVERSES 127 

difficulty, always, is to provide seamen. It is much 
easier to build ships than to train sailors. To man 
his httle fleet, Alfred had to enlist such half-savage 
foreigners as could be found in the ports, and even 
pirates, as was said, whom he induced to enter his 
service, promising them pay, and such plunder as 
they could take from the enemy. These attempts of 
Alfred to build and man a fleet are considered the 
first rude beginnings from which the present vast 
edifice of British naval power took its origin. When 
the fleet was ready to put to sea, the people thronged 
the shores, watching its movements with the utmost 
curiosity and interest, earnestly hoping that it might 
be successful in its contests with the more tried and 
experienced armaments with which it would have to 
contend. 

Alfred was, in fact, successful in the first enter- 
prises which he undertook with his ships. He en- 
countered a fleet of the Danish ships in the Channel, 
and defeated them. His fleet captured, moreover, one 
of the largest of the vessels of the enemy; and, with 
what would be thought in our day unpardonable 
cruelty, they threw the sailors and soldiers whom 
they found on board into the sea, and kept the 
vessel. 

After all, however, Alfred gained no conclusive 
and decisive victory over his foes. They were too 
numerous, too scattered, and too firmly seated in the 



128 ALFRED THE GREAT [875 

various districts of the island, of some of wliich tliey 
had been in possession for many years. Time passed 
on, battles were fought, treaties of peace were made, 
oaths were taken, hostages were exchanged, and 
then, after a very brief interval of repose, hostiUties 
would break out again, each party bitterly accusing 
the other of treachery. Then the poor hostages would 
be slain, first by one party, and afterward, in retaha- 
tion, by the other. 

In one of these temporary and illusive pacifications, 
Alfred attempted to bind the Danes by Christian 
oaths. Their customary mode of binding themselves, 
in cases where they wished to impose a solemn re- 
ligious obligation, was to swear by a certain orna- 
ment which they wore upon their arms, which is 
called in the chronicles of those times a bracelet. 
What its form and fashion was we can not now pre- 
cisely know; but it is plain that they attached some 
superstitious, and perhaps idolatrous associations of 
sacredness to it. To swear by this bracelet was to 
place themselves under the most solemn obligation 
that they could assume. Alfred, however, not satisfied 
with this pagan sanction, made them, in confirming 
one treaty, swear by the Christian relics, which were 
certain supposed memorials of our Saviour's crucifix- 
ion, or portions of the bodies of dead saints miracu- 
lously preserved, and to which the credulous Christians 
of that day attached an idea of sacredness and awe, 



875] REVERSES 129 

scarcely less superstitious than that which their pagan 
enemies felt for the bracelets on their arms, Alfred 
could not have supposed that these treacherous cove- 
nanters, since they would readily violate the faith 
pHghted in the name of what they revered, could be 
held by what they hated and despised. Perhaps he 
thought that, though they would be no more likely 
to keep the new oath than the old, still, that their 
violation of it, when it occurred, would be in itself a 
great crime — that his cause would be subsequently 
strengthened by their thus incurring the special and 
unmitigated displeasure of Heaven. 

Among the Danish chieftains with whom Alfred 
had thus continually to contend in this early part of 
his reign, there was one very famous hero, whose 
name was Rollo. He invaded England with a wild 
horde which attended him for a short time, but he 
soon retired and went to France, where he afterward 
greatly distinguished himself by his prowess and his 
exploits. The Saxon historians say that he retreated 
from England because Alfred gave him such a recep- 
tion that he saw that it would be impossible for him 
to maintain his footing there. His account of it was, 
that, one day, when he was perplexed with doubt 
and uncertainty about his plans, he fell asleep and 
dreamed that he saw a swarm of bees flying south- 
ward. This was an omen, as he regarded it, indica- 
ting the course which he ought to pursue. He accord- 

M. of H. —1 5—9 



130 ALFRED THE GREAT [875 

ingly embarked his men on board his ships again, and 
crossed the Channel, and sought successfully in Nor- 
mandy, a province of France, the kingdom and the 
home which, either on account of Alfred or of the 
bees, he was not to enjoy in England. 

The cases, however, in which the Danish chief- 
tains were either entirely conquered or finally expelled 
from the kingdom were very few. As years passed 
on, Alfred found his army diminishing, and the 
strength of his kingdom wasting away. His resources 
were exhausted, his friends had disappeared, his towns 
and castles were taken, and, at last, about eight years 
after his coronation at Winchester as monarch of the 
most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, he found him- 
self reduced to the very last extreme of destitution 
and distress. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

The Seclusion. 

Alfred's perseverance.— Another arrival of Danes.— Alfred's army disorgan- 
ized. — He is left alone.— Alfred's virife. — He retires to Athelney. — The 
covif-herd. — He gives Alfred an asylum. — Alfred's account of himself.— 
The story of Alfred's seclusion. — Alfred's occupations at Ethelney. — His 
gloomy thoughts. — The story of the cakes. — Its deep interest. — Various 
accounts of the story of the cakes. — Effect of Alfred's seclusion on his 
heart and character. — Alfred's patience and fortitude. — He makes him- 
self known. — Scarcity of provisions. — Services of the iierdsman — Fish« 
ing excursions. — The story of the beggar. — Alfred's charity. — His 
dream. — Return of the hunting party. — Revival of Alfred's hopes. — 
Plans of Alfred and his friends to recover the kingdom. 

N'OTWiTHSTANDiNG the tide of disaster and calamity 
which seemed to be gradually overwhelming 
— Alfred's kingdom, he was not reduced to ab- 

solute despair, but continued for a long time the 
almost hopeless struggle. There is a certain desper- 
ation to which men are often aroused in the last ex- 
tremity, which surpasses courage, and is even some- 
times a very effectual substitute for strength; and 
Alfred might, perhaps, have succeeded, after all, in 
saving his affairs from utter ruin, had not a new cir- 
cumstance intervened, which seemed at once to 
extinguish all remaining hope and to seal his doom. 
This circumstance was the arrival of a new band 

(130 



132 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

of Danes, who were, it seems, more numerous, more 
ferocious, and more insatiable than any who had come 
before them. The other kingdoms of the Saxons had 
been already pretty effectually plundered. Alfred's 
kingdom of Wessex was now, therefore, the most in- 
viting field, and, after various excursions of conquest 
and plunder in other parts of the island, they came 
like an inundation over Alfred's frontiers, and all hope 
of resisting them seems to have been immediately 
abandoned. The Saxon armies were broken up. Al- 
fred had lost, it appears, all influence and control over 
both leaders and men. The chieftains and nobles 
fled. Some left the country altogether; others hid 
themselves in the best retreats and fastnesses that 
they could find. Alfred himself was obliged to fol- 
low the general example. A few attendants, either 
more faithful than the rest, or else more distrustful of 
their own resources, and inclined, accordingly, to seek 
their own personal safety by adhering closely to their 
sovereign, followed him. These, however, one after 
another gradually forsook him, and, finally, the fallen 
and deserted monarch was left alone. 

In fact, it was a relief to him at last to be left 
alone; for they who remained around him became in 
the end a burden instead of affording him protection. 
They were too few to fight, and too many to be eas- 
ily concealed. Alfred withdrew himself from them, 
thinking that, under the circumstances in which he 



878] THE SECLUSION 133 

was now placed, he was justified in seeking his own 
personal safety alone. He had a wife, whom he 
married when he was about twenty years old; but 
she was not with him now, though she afterward 
joined him. She was in some other place of retreat. 
She could, in fact, be much more easily concealed 
than her husband; for the Danes, though they would 
undoubtedly have valued her very highly as a cap- 
tive, would not search for her with the eager and 
persevering vigilance with which it was to be ex- 
pected they would hunt for their most formidable, but 
now discomfited and fugitive foe. 

Alfred, therefore, after disentangling himself from 
all but one or two trustworthy and faithful friends, 
wandered on toward the west, through forests, and 
solitudes, and wilds, to get as far away as possible 
from the enemies who were upon his track. He ar- 
rived at last on the remote western frontiers of his 
kingdom, at a place whose name had been immortal- 
ized by its having been for some time the place of 
his retreat. It was called Athelney. * Athelney was, 
however, scarcely deserving of a name, for it was 
nothing but a small spot of dry land in the midst of 
a morass, which, as grass would grow upon it in 
the openings among the trees, a simple cow-herd had 
taken possession of, and built his hut there. 



*The name is spelled variously, Ethelney, y^thelney, /Ethelingay, 
&c. It was in Somersetshire^ between the rivers Thone and Parrot, 



134 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

The solid land which the cow-herd called his 
farm was only about two acres in extent. All around 
it was a black morass, of great extent, wooded with 
alders, among which green sedges grew, and slug- 
gish streams meandered, and mossy tracts of verdure 
spread treacherously over deep bogs and sloughs. In 
the driest season of the summer the goats and the sheep 
penetrated into these recesses, but, excepting in the 
devious and tortuous path by which the cow-herd 
found his way to his island, it was almost impassa- 
ble for man. 

Alfred, however, attracted now by the impedi- 
ments and obstacles which would have repelled a 
wanderer under any other circumstances, went on 
with the greater alacrity the more intricate and en- 
tangled the thickets of the m.orass were found, since 
these difficulties promised to impede or deter pursuit. 
He found his way in to the cow-herd's hut. He 
asked for shelter. People who lived in solitudes are 
always hospitable. The cow-herd took the wayworn 
fugitive in, and gave him food and shelter. Alfred 
remained his guest for a considerable time. 

The story is, that after a few days the cow-herd 
asked him who he was, and how he came to be wan- 
dering about in that distressed and destitute condition. 
Alfred told him that he was one of the king's thanes. 
A thane was a sort of chieftain in the Saxon state. 
He accounted for his condition by saying that Alfred's 



878] THE SECLUSION 135 

army had been beaten by the Danes, and that he, 
with other generals, had been forced to fly. He 
begged the cow-herd to conceal him, and to keep 
the secret of his character until times should change, 
so that he could take the field again. 

The story of Alfred's seclusion on the island, as it 
might almost be called, of Ethelney, is told very 
differently by the different narrators of it. Some of 
these narrations are inconsistent and contradictory. 
They all combine, however, though they differ in 
respect to many other incidents and details, in re- 
lating the far-famed story of Alfred's leaving the 
cakes to burn. It seems that, though the cow- 
herd himself was allowed to regard Alfred as a 
man of rank in disguise — though even he did not 
know that it was the king — his wife was not ad- 
mitted, even in this partial way, into the secret. She 
was made to consider the stranger as some common 
stroHing countryman, and the better to sustain this 
idea, he was taken into the cow-herd's service, and 
employed in various ways, from time to time, in 
labors about the house and farm. Alfred's thoughts, 
however, were little interested in these occupations. 
His mind dwelt incessantly upon his misfortunes and 
the calamities which had befallen his kingdom. He 
was harassed by continual suspense and anxiety, not 
being able to gain any clear or certain intelligence 
about the condition and movements of either his 



136 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

friends or foes. He was revolving continually vague 
and half-formed plans for resuming the command of 
his army and attempting to regain his kingdom, and 
wearying himself with fruitless attempts to devise 
means to accomplish these ends. Whenever he en- 
gaged voluntarily in any occupation, it would always 
be something in harmony with these trains of thought 
and these plans. He would repair and put in order 
implements of hunting, or any thing else which 
might be deemed to have some relation to war. He 
would make bows and arrows in the chimney corner, 
— lost, all the time, in melancholy reveries, or in 
wild and visionary schemes of future exploits. 

One evening, while he was thus at work, the 
cow-herd's wife left, for a few moments, some cakes 
under his charge, which she was baking upon the 
great stone hearth, in preparation for their common 
supper. Alfred, as might have been expected, let the 
cakes burn. The woman, when she came back and 
found them smoking, was very angry. She told him 
that he could eat the cakes fast enough when they 
were baked, though it seemed he was too lazy and 
good for nothing to do the least thing in helping to 
bake them. What wide-spread and lasting effects 
result sometimes from the most trifling and inadequate 
causes! The singularity of such an adventure befall- 
ing a monarch in disguise, and the strong antithesis of 
the reproaches with which the woman rebuked him, 



THE SCOLDING OF ALFRED BY THE PEAS- 
ANT WOMAN FOR BURNING THgJZAMS 



878] THE SECLUSION 137 

invest this incident witii an interest which carries it 
every where spontaneously among mankind. Millions, 
within the last thousand years, have heard the name 
of Alfred, who have known no more of him than 
this story; and millions more, who never would have 
heard of him but for this story, have been led by it 
to study the whole history of his hfe; so that the 
unconscious cow-herd's wife, in scolding the dis- 
guised monarch for forgetting her cakes, was perhaps 
doing more than he ever did himself for the wide 
extension of his future fame.* 



*As this incident has been so famous, it may amuse the reader 
to peruse the different accounts which are given of it in the most an- 
cient records which now remain. They were written in Latin and in 
Saxon, and, of course, as given here, they are translations. The dis- 
crepancies which the reader will observe in the details illustrate well 
the uncertainty which pertains to all historical accounts that go back 
to so early an age. 

" He led an unquiet life there, at his cow-herd's. It happened 
that, on a certain day, the rustic wife of the man prepared to bake 
hei bread. The kmg, sitting then near the hearth, was making ready 
his bow and arrows, and other warlike implements, when the ill- 
tempered woman beheld the loaves burning at the fire. She ran has- 
tily and removed them, scolding at the king, and exclaiming, ' You 
man! you will not turn the bread you see burning, but you will be 
very glad to eat it when it is done!' This unlucky woman little 
thought she was addressing the King Alfred." 

In a certain Saxon history the story is told thus: 

" He took shelter in a swain's house, and also him and his evil 
wife diligently served. It happened that, on one day, the swain's 



ijS ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

Alfred was, for a time, extremely depressed and 
disheartened by the sense of his misfortunes and ca- 
lamities; but the monkish writers who described his 
character and his life say that the influence of his 
sufferings was extremely salutary in softening his dis- 
position and improving his character. He had been 
proud, and haughty, and domineering before. He be- 



wife heated her oven, and the king sat by it warming himself by the 
fire. She knew not then that he was the king. Then the evil 
woman was excited, and spoke to the king with an angry mind. 
' Turn thou these loaves, that they bum not, for I see daily that thou 
art a great eater!' He soon obeyed this evil woman because she 
would scold. He then, the good king, with great anxiety and sigh- 
ing, called to his Lord, imploring his pity." 

The following account is from a Latin life of St. Neot, which still 
exists in manuscript, and is of great antiquity: 

"Alfred, a fugitive, and exiled from his people, came by chance 
and entered the house of a poor herdsman, and there remained some 
days concealed, poor and unknown. 

"It happened that, on the Sabbath day, the herdsman, as usual, 
led his cattle to their accustomed pastures, and the king remained 
alone in the cottage with the man's wife. She, as necessity required, 
placed a few loaves, which some call loudas, on a pan, with fire un- 
derneath, to be baked for her husband's repast and her own, on his 
return. 

" WhUe she was necessarily busied, like peasants, on other offices, 
she went anxious to the fire, and found the bread burning on the other 
side. She immediately assailed the king with reproaches. 'Why, 
man! do you sit thinking there, and are too proud to turn the 
bread? Whatever be your family, with your manners and sloth, what 
trust can be put in you hereafter ? If you were even a nobleman, 
you will be glad to eat the bread which you neglect to attend to.' 
The king, though stung by her upbraidings, yet heard her with pa- 



878] THE SECLUSION 139 

came humble, docile, and considerate now. Faults 
of character that are superficial, resulting from the 
force of circumstances and peculiarities of temptation, 
rather than from innate depravity of heart, are easily 
and readily burned off in the fire of affliction, while 



tience and mildness, and, roused by her scolding, took care to bake 
her bread thereafter as she wished." 

There is one remaining account, which is as follows: 

"It happened that the herdsman one day, as usual, led his swine 
to their accustomed pasture, and the king remained at home alone 
with the wife. She placed her bread under the ashes of the fire to 
bake, and was employed in other business when she saw the loaves 
burning, and said to the king in her rage, ' You will not turn the 
bread you see burning, though you will be very glad to eat it when 
done! ' The king, with a submitting countenance, though vexed at 
her upbraidings, not only turned the bread, but gave them to the 
woman well baked and unbroken." 

It is obvious, from the character of these several accounts, that 
each writer, taking the substantial fact as the ground work of his 
story, has added such details and chosen such expressions for the 
housewife's reproaches as suited his own individual fancy. We find, 
unfortunately for the truth and trustworthiness of history, that this 
is almost always the case, when independent and original accounts of 
past transactions, whether great or small, are compared. The gravest 
historians, as well as the lightest story tellers, frame their narrations 
for effect, and the tendency in all ages to shape and fashion the nar- 
rative with a view to the particular effect designed by the individual 
narrator to be produced has been found entirely irresistible. It is 
necessary to compare, with great diligence and careful scrutiny, a great 
many different accounts, in order to learn how little there js to be ex- 
actly and confidently believed. 



I40 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

the same severe ordeal seems only to indurate the more 
hopelessly those propensities which lie deeply seated 
in an inherent and radical perversity. 

Alfred, though restless and wretched in his ap- 
parently hopeless seclusion, bore his privations with a 
great degree of patience and fortitude, planning, all 
the time, the best means of reorganizing his scattered 
forces, and of rescuing his country from the ruin into 
which it had fallen. Some of his former friends, 
roaming as he himself had done, as fugitives about 
the country, happened at length to come into the 
neighborhood of his retreat. He heard of them, and 
cautiously made himself known. They were rejoiced 
to find their old commander once more, and, as there 
was no force of the Danes in that neighborhood at 
the time, they lingered, timidly and fearlessly at first, 
in the vicinity, until, at length, growing more bold 
as they found themselves unmolested in their retreat, 
they began to make it their gathering place and head- 
quarters. Alfred threw off his disguise, and assumed 
his true character. Tidings of his having been thus 
discovered spread confidentially among the most tried 
and faithful of his Saxon followers, who had themselves 
been seeking safety in other places of refuge. They 
began, at first cautiously and by stealth, but afterward 
more openly, to repair to the spot. Alfred's family, 
too, from which he had now been for many months 
entirely separated, contrived to rejoin him. The 



878] THE SECLUSION 141 

herdsman, who proved to be a man of intelligence 
and character superior to his station, entered heartily 
into all these movements. He kept the secret faith- 
fully. He did all in his power to provide for the 
wants and to promote the comfort of his warlike 
guests, and, by his fidelity and devotion, laid Alfred 
under obligations of gratitude to him, which the king, 
when he was afterward restored to the throne, did 
not forget to repay. 

Notwithstanding, however, all the efforts which 
the herdsman made to obtain supplies, the company 
now assembled at Ethelney were sometimes reduced 
to great straits. There were not only the wants of 
Alfred and his immediate family and attendants to be 
provided for, but many persons were continually 
coming and going, arriving often at unexpected times, 
and acting, as roving and disorganized bodies of sol- 
diers are very apt to do at such times, in a very in- 
considerate manner. The herdsman's farm produced 
very little food, and the inaccessibleness of its situa- 
tion made it difficult to bring in supplies from with- 
out. In fact, it was necessary, in one part of the 
approach to it, to use a boat, so that the place is 
generally called, in history, an island, though it was 
insulated mainly by swamps and morasses rather than 
by navigable waters. There were, however, sluggish 
streams all around it, where Alfred's men, when their 
stores were exhausted, went to fish, under the herds- 



142 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

man's guidance, returning sometimes with a moderate 
fare, and sometimes with none. 

The monks who describe this portion of Alfred's 
life have recorded an hicident as having occurred on 
the occasion of one of these fishing excursions, which, 
however, is certainly, in part, a fabrication, and may 
be wholly so. It was in the winter. The waters 
about the grounds were frozen up. The provisions 
in the house were nearly exhausted, there being 
scarcely any thing remaining. The men went away 
with their fishing apparatus, and with their bows and 
arrows, in hopes of procuring some fish or fowl to 
replenish their stores. Alfred was left alone, with 
only a single lady of his family, who is called in the 
account "Mother," though it could not have been 
Alfred's own mother, as she had been dead many 
years. Alfred was sitting in the hut reading. A 
beggar, who had by some means or other found his 
way in over the frozen morasses, came to the door, 
and asked for food. Alfred, looking up from his 
book, asked the mother, whoever she was, to go and 
see what there was to give him. She went to make 
examination, and presently returned, saying that there 
was nothing to give him. There was only a single 
loaf of bread remaining, and that would not be half 
enough for their own wants that very night when 
the hunting party should return, if they should come 
back unsuccessful from their expedition. Alfred hesi- 



878] THE SECLUSION 143 

tated a moment, and then ordered half the loaf to be 
given to the beggar. He said, in justification of the 
act, that his trust was now in God, and that the 
power which once, with five loaves and two small 
fishes, fed abundantly three thousand men, could 
easily make half a loaf suffice for them. 

The loaf was accordingly divided, the beggar was 
supplied, and, delighted with this unexpected relief, 
he went away. Alfred turned his attention again to 
his reading. After a time the book dropped from his 
hand. He had fallen asleep. He dreamed that a cer- 
tain saint appeared to him, and made a revelation to 
him from heaven. God, he said, had heard his 
prayers, was satisfied with his penitence, and pitied 
his sorrows; and that his act of charity in relieving 
the poor beggar, even at the risk of leaving himself 
and his friends in utter destitution, was extremely 
acceptable in the sight of Heaven. The faith and 
trust which he thus manifested were about to be re- 
warded. The time for a change had come. He was 
to be restored to his kingdom, and raised to a new 
and higher state of prosperity and power than before. 
As a token that this prediction was true, and would 
be all fulfilled, the hunting party would return that 
night with an ample and abundant supply. 

Alfred awoke from his sleep with his mind filled 
with new hopes and anticipations. The hunting party 
returned loaded with supplies, and in a state of the 



144 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

greatest exhilaration at their success. They had fish 
and game enough to have supplied a little army. 
The mcident of relieving the beggar, the dream, and 
their unwonted success confirming it, inspired them 
all with confidence and hope. They began to form 
plans for commencing offensive operations. They 
would build fortifications to strengthen their position 
on the island. They would collect a force. They 
would make sallies to attack the smaller parties of 
the Danes. They would send agents and emissaries 
about the kingdom to arouse, and encourage, and 
assemble such Saxon forces as were yet to be found. 
In a word, they would commence a series of meas- 
ures for recovering the country from the possession 
of its pestilent enemy, and for restoring the rightful 
sovereign to the throne. The development of these 
projects and plans, and the measures for carrying 
them into effect, were very much hastened by an 
event which suddenly occurred in the neighborhood 
of Ethelney, the account of which, however, must be 
postponed to the next chapter. 




CHAPTER IX. 

Reassembling of the Army. 

Supposed situation of Ethelney. — The jewel of gold.— Changes produced by- 
time. — Alfred fortifies Ethelney. — Hubba iu Wales. — Castle Kenwith. — 
Hubba crosses the Channel. — He besieges Odun. — The magical banner. 

— How regarded by the Saxons and Danes. — Hubba's plan of opera- 
tions. — Preparations of Odun. — Sally of the Saxons. — Death of Hubba. 

— Capture of the banner. — Slaughter of the Danes. — Alfred's prospects 
brighten. — Alarm of the Danes. — Alfred resolves to explore the Danish 
camp.— His disguise. — Alfred in the Danish camp. — He plays for the 
king. — Guthrum's reception of Alfred. — His attendant and companion. 

— Alfred returns to Ethelney. — His plans. — Selwood Forest. — Stone of 
Egbert. — The great meeting in Selwood Forest. — Rejoicings. — Guthrum 
in his camp. — His sense of security. — Alfred marches toward Guthrum's 
camp.— He encamps at .ajcglea. — Alfred's remarkable dream. — Enthu- 
siasm of the array. 

THELNEY, though its prccisc locality can not now 
be certainly ascertained, was in the south- 
western part of England, in Somersetshire, 
which county lies on the southern shore of the Bris- 
tol Channel. There is a region of marshes in that 
vicinity, which tradition assigns as the place of Al- 
fred's retreat; and there was, about the middle of the 
19th century, a farm-house there, which bore the name 
of Ethelney, though this name may have been given 
to it in modern times by those who imagined it to be 

M. of H.— 15— 10 ( '45) 



146 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

the ancient locality, A jewel of gold, engraved as an 
amulet to be worn about the neck, and inscribed with 
the Saxon words which mean "Alfred had me made," 
was found in the vicinity, and is still carefully pre- 
served in a museum in England. Some curious anti- 
quarians profess to find the very hillock, rising out of 
the low grounds around, where the herdsman that 
entertained Alfred so long lived ; but this, of course, is 
all uncertain. The peculiarities of the spot derived 
their character from the morasses and the woods, and 
the courses of the sluggish streams in the neighbor- 
hood, and these are elements of landscape scenery 
which ten centuries of time and of cultivation would 
entirely change. 

Whatever may have been the precise situation of 
the spot, instead of being, as at first, a mere hiding- 
place and retreat, it became, before many months, as 
was intimated in the last chapter, a military camp, 
secluded and concealed, it is true, but still possess- 
ing, in a considerable degree, the characteristics of 
a fastness and place of defense. Alfred's company 
erected something which might be called a wall. 
They built a bridge across the water where the 
herdsman's boat had been accustomed to ply. They 
raised two towers to watch and guard the bridge. 
All these defenses were indeed of a very rude and 
simple construction; still, they answered the pur- 
pose intended. They afforded a real protection; and, 



878] REASSEMBLING OF ARMY 147 

more than all, they produced a certain moral effect 
upon the minds of those whom they shielded, by 
enabling them to consider themselves as no longer 
lurking fugitives, dependent for safety on simple 
concealment, but as a garrison, weak, it is true, 
but still gathering strength, and advancing gradually 
toward a condition which would enable them to 
make positive aggressions upon the enemy. 

The circumstance which occurred to hasten the 
development of Alfred's plans, and which was briefly 
alluded to at the close of the last chapter, was the 
following: It seems that quite a large party of Danes, 
under the command of a leader named Hubba, had 
been making a tour of conquest and plunder in 
Wales, which country was on the other side of the 
Bristol Channel, directly north of Ethelney, where 
Alfred was beginning to concentrate a force. He 
would be immediately exposed to an attack from this 
quarter as soon as it should be known that he was 
at Ethelney, as the distance across the Channel was 
not great, and the Danes were provided with ship- 
ping. 

Ethelney was in the county called Somersetshire. 
To the southwest of Somersetshire, a little below it, 
on the shores of the Bristol Channel, was a castle, 
called Castle Kenwith, in Devonshire. The Duke of 
Devonshire, who held this castle, encouraged by Al- 
fred's preparations for action, had assembled a con- 



148 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

siderable force here, to be ready to co-operate with 
Alfred in the active measures which he was about to 
adopt. Things being in this state, Hubba brought 
down his forces to the northern shores of the Chan- 
nel, collected together all the boats and shipping that 
he could command, crossed the Channel, and landed 
on the Devonshire shore. Odun, the duke, not being 
strong enough to resist, fled, and shut himself up, 
with all his men, in the castle. Hubba advanced to 
the castle walls, and, sitting down before them, began 
to consider what to do. 

Hubba was the last surviving son of Ragnar Lod- 
brog, whose deeds and adventures were related in a 
former chapter. He was, like all other chieftains 
among the Danes, a man of great determination and 
energy, and he had made himself very celebrated all 
over the land by his exploits and conquests. His 
particular horde of marauders, too, was specially 
celebrated among all the others, on account of a 
mysterious and magical banner which they bore. The 
name of this banner was the Reafan, that is, the 
Raven. There was the figure of a raven woven or 
embroidered on the banner. Hubba's three sisters 
had woven it for their brothers, when they went 
forth across the German Ocean to avenge their father's 
death. It possessed, as both the Danes and Saxons 
believed, supernatural and magical powers. The raven 
on the banner could foresee the result of any battle 



878] REASSEMBLING OF ARMY 149 

into which it was borne. It remained lifeless and at 
rest whenever the result was to be adverse; and, on 
the other hand, it fluttered its wings with a myste- 
rious and magical vitality when they who bore it 
were destined to victory. The Danes consequently 
looked up to this banner with a feeling of profound 
veneration and awe, and the Saxons feared and 
dreaded its mysterious power. The explanation of 
this pretended miracle is easy. The imagination of 
superstitious men, in such a state of society as that 
of these half-savage Danes, is capable of much greater 
triumphs over the reason and the senses than is im- 
plied in making them believe that the wings of a 
bird are either in motion or at rest, whichever it 
fancies, when the banner on which the image is em- 
broidered is advancing to the field and fluttering in 
the breeze. 

The Castle of Kenwith was situated on a rocky 
promontory, and was defended by a Saxon wall. 
Hubba saw that it would be difficult to carry it by 
a direct assault. On the other hand, it was not well 
supplied with water or provision's, and the numerous 
multitude which had crowded into it, would, as 
Hubba thought, be speedily compelled to surrender 
by thirst and famine, if he were simply to wait a 
short time, till their scanty stock of food was con- 
sumed. Perhaps the raven did not flutter her wings 
when Hubba approached the castle, but by her ap- 



ISO ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

parent lifelessness portended calamity if an attack 
were to be made. At all events, Hubba decided not 
to attack the castle, but to invest it closely on all 
sides, with his army on the land and with his vessels 
on the side of the sea, and thus reduce it by famine. 
He accordingly stationed his troops and his galleys 
at their posts and established himself in his tent, qui- 
etly to await the result. 

He did not have to wait so long as he anticipated. 
Odun, finding that his danger was so imminent, nay, 
that his destruction was inevitable if he remained in 
his castle, thus shut in, determined, in the despera- 
tion to which the emergency reduced him, to make 
a sally. Accordingly, one night, as soon as it was 
dark, so that the indications of any movement within 
the castle might not be perceived by the sentinels and 
watchmen in Hubba's lines, he began to marshal and 
organize his army for a sudden and furious onset upon 
the camp of the Danes. 

They waited, when all was ready, till the first 
break of day. To make the surprise most effectual, 
it was necessary that it should take place in the 
night; but then, on the other hand, the success, if 
they should be successful, would require, in order to 
be followed up with advantage, the light of day. 
Odun chose, therefore, the earliest dawn as the time 
for his attempt, as this was the only period which 
would give him at first darkness for his surprise, and 



878] REASSEMBLING OF ARMY 151 

afterward light for his victory. The time was well 
chosen, the arrangements were all well made, and 
the result corresponded with the character of the 
preparations. The sally was triumphantly successful. 

The Danes, who were all, except their sentinels, 
sleeping quietly and secure, were suddenly aroused 
by the unearthly and terrific yells with which the 
Saxons burst into the lines of their encampment. 
They flew to arms, but the shock of the onset pro- 
duced a panic and confusion which soon made their 
cause hopeless. Odun and his immediate followers 
pressed directly forward into Hubba's tent, where 
they surprised the commander, and massacred him 
on the spot. They seized, too, to their inexpressible 
joy, the sacred banner, which was in Hubba's tent, 
and bore it forth, rejoicing in it, not merely as a 
splendid trophy of their victory, but as a loss to their 
enemies which fixed and sealed their doom. 

The Danes fled before their enemies in terror, and 
the consternation which they felt, when they learned 
that their banner had been captured and their leader 
slain, was soon changed into absolute despair. The 
Saxons slew them without mercy, cutting down some 
as they were running before them in their headlong 
flight, and transfixing others with their spears and ar- 
rows as they lay upon the ground, trampled down by 
the crowds and the confusion. There was no place 
<Df refuge to which they could fly except to their ships. 



152 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

Those, therefore, that escaped the weapons of their 
pursuers, fled in the direction of the water, where the 
strong and the fortunate gained the boats and the 
galleys, while the exhausted and the wounded were 
drowned. The fleet sailed away from the coast, and 
the Saxons, on surveying the scene of the terrible 
contest, estimated that there were twelve hundred dead 
bodies lying in the field. 

This victory, and especially the capture of the 
Raven, produced vast effects on the minds both of the 
Saxons and of the Danes, animating and encouraging 
the one, and depressing the other with superstitious 
as well as natural and proper fears. The influence of 
the battle was sufficient, in fact, wholly to change 
Alfred's position and prospects. The news of the 
discovery of the place of his retreat, and of the meas- 
ures which he was maturing for taking the field again 
to meet his enemies, spread throughout the country. 
The people were every where ready to take up arms 
and join him. There were large bodies of Danes in 
several parts of his dominions still, and they, alarmed 
somewhat at these indications of new efforts of resist- 
ance on the part of their enemies, began to concen- 
trate their strength and prepare for another struggle. 

The main body of the Danes were encamped at a 
place called Edendune, in Wiltshire. There is a hill 
near, which the army made their main position, and 
the marks of their fortifications have been traced there, 



878] REASSEMBLING OF ARMY 153 

either in imagination or reality, in modern times. 
Alfred wished to gain more precise and accurate in- 
formation than he yet possessed of the numbers and 
situation of his foes; and, in order to do this, instead 
of employing a spy, he conceived the design of going 
himself in disguise to explore the camp of the Danes. 
The undertaking was full of danger, but yet not quite 
so desperate as at first it might seem. Alfred had 
had abundant opportunities during the months of his 
seclusion to become familiar with the modes of speech 
and the manners of peasant life. He had also, in his 
early years, stored his memory with Saxon poetry, as 
has already been stated. He was fond of music, too, 
and well skilled in it; so that he had every qualifica- 
tion for assuming the character of one of those roving 
harpers, who, in those days, followed armies, to sing 
songs and make amusement for the soldiers. He de- 
termined, consequently, to assume the disguise of a 
harper, and to wander into the camp of the Danes, 
that he might make his own observations on the 
nature and magnitude of the force with which he 
was about to contend. 

He accordingly clothed himself in the garb of the 
character which he was to assume, and, taking his 
harp upon his shoulder, wandered away in the direc- 
tion of the Northmen's camp. Such a strolhng country- 
man, half musician, half beggar would enter without 
suspicion or hindrance into the camp, even though 



154 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

he belonged to the nation of the enemy. Alfred was 
readily admitted, and he wandered at will about the 
lines, to play and sing to the soldiers wherever he 
found groups to listen, intent, apparently, on nothing 
but his scanty pittance of pay, while he was really 
studying, with the utmost attention and care, the 
number, and disposition, and discipline of the troops, 
and all the arrangements of the army. He came very 
near discovering himself, however, by overacting his 
part. His music was so well executed and his ballads 
were so fine, that reports of the excellence of his 
performance reached the commander's ears. He or- 
dered the pretended harper to be sent into his tent, 
that he might hear him play and sing. Alfred went, 
and thus he had the opportunity of completing his 
observations in the tent, and in the presence of the 
Danish king. 

Alfred found that the Danish camp was in a very 
unguarded and careless condition. The name of the 
commander, or king, was Guthrum.* Alfred, while 
playing in his presence, studied his character, and it 
is improbable that the very extraordinary course which 
he afterward pursued in respect to Guthrum may have 
been caused, in a great degree, by the opportunity he 
now enjoyed of domestic access to him and of ob- 
taining a near and intimate view of his social and 



* Spelled sometimes Godrun, Gutrum, Gythram, and in various 
other ways. 



878] REASSEMBLING OF ARMY 155 

personal character. Guthrum treated the supposed 
harper with great kindness. He was much pleased 
both with his singing and his songs, being attracted, 
too, probably, in some degree, by a certain mysterious 
interest which the humble stranger must have in- 
spired; for Alfred possessed personal and intellectual 
traits of character which could not but have given to 
his conversation and his manners a certain charm, 
notwithstanding all his efforts to disguise or conceal 
them. 

However this may be, Guthrum gave Alfred a very 
friendly reception, and the hour of social intercourse 
and enjoyment which the general and the ballad- 
singer spent together was only a precursor of the 
more solid and honest friendship which afterward 
subsisted between them as allied sovereigns. 

Alfred had one person with him, whom he had 
brought from Ethelney — a sort of atterfdant — to help 
him carry his harp, and to be a companion for him 
on the way. He would have needed such a com- 
panion even if he had been only what he seemed; 
but for a spy, going in disguise into the camp of 
such ferocious enemies as the Danes, it would seem 
absolutely indispensable that he should have the sup- 
port and sympathy of a friend. 

Alfred, after finishing his examination of the camp 
of Guthrum, and forming secretly, in his own mind, 
his plans for attacking it, moved leisurely away, tak- 



156 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

ing his harp and his attendant with him, as if going 
on in search of some new place to practice his pro- 
fession. As soon as he was out of the reach of obser- 
vation, he made a circuit and returned in safety to 
Ethelney. The season was now spring, and every 
thing favored the commencement of his enterprise. 

His first measure was to send out some trusty 
messengers into all the neighboring counties, to visit 
and confer with his friends at their various castles 
and strong-holds. These messengers were to an- 
nounce to such Saxon leaders as they should find 
that Alfred was still alive, and that he was preparing 
to take the field against the Danes again; and were 
to invite them to assemble at a certain place ap- 
pointed, in a forest, with as many followers as they 
could bring, that the king might there complete the 
organization of an army, and hold consultation with 
them to mature their plans. 

The wood on the borders of which they were to 
meet was an extensive forest of willows, fifteen miles 
long and six broad. It was known by the name of 
Selwood Forest. There was a celebrated place called 
the Stone of Egbert, where the meeting was to be 
held. Each chieftain whom the messengers should 
visit was to be invited to come to the Stone of Eg- 
bert at the appointed day, with as many armed men, 
and yet in as secret and noiseless a manner as possi- 
ble, so as thus, while concentrating all their forces in 



878] REASSEMBLING OF ARMY 157 

preparation for their intended attack, to avoid every 
thing which would tend to put Guthrum on his guard. 

The messengers found the Saxon chieftains very 
ready to enter into Alfred's plans. They were rejoiced 
to hear, as some of them did now for the first time 
hear, that he was ahve, and that the spirit and energy 
of his former character were about to be exhibited 
again. Every thing, in fact, conspired to favor the 
enterprise. The long and gloomy months of winter 
were past, and the opening spring brought with it, as 
usual, excitement and readiness for action. The ti- 
dings of Odun's victory over Hubba, and the capture 
of the sacred raven, which had spread every where, 
had awakened a general enthusiasm, and a desire on 
the part of all the Saxon chieftains and soldiers to try 
their strength once more with their ancient enemies. 

Accordingly, those to whom the secret was in- 
trusted eagerly accepted the invitation, or, perhaps, as 
it should rather be expressed, obeyed the summons 
which Alfred sent them. They marshaled their forces 
without any delay, and repaired to the appointed 
place in Selwood Forest. Alfred was ready to meet 
them there. Two days were occupied with the ar- 
rivals of the different parties, and in the mutual con- 
gratulations and rejoicings. Growing more bold as 
their sense of strength increased with their increasing 
numbers, and with the ardor and enthusiasm which 
their mutual influence on each other inspired, they 



158 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

spent the intervals of their consultations in festivities 
and rejoicings, celebrating the occasion with games 
and martial music. The forest resounded with the 
blasts of horns, the sound of the trumpets, the clash 
of arms, and the shouts of joy and congratulation, 
which all the efforts of the more prudent and cautious 
could not repress. 

In the mean time, Guthrum remained in his en- 
campment at Edendune. This seems to have been 
the principal concentration of the forces of the Danes 
which were marshaled for military service; and yet 
there were large numbers of the people, disbanded 
soldiers, or non-combatants, who had come over in 
the train of the armies, that had taken possession of 
the lands which they had conquered, and had settled 
upon them for cultivation, as if to make them their 
permanent home. These intruders were scattered in 
larger or smaller bodies in various parts of the king- 
dom, the Saxon inhabitants being prevented from 
driving them away by the influence and power of 
the armies, which still kept possession of the field, 
and preserved their military organization complete, 
ready for action at any time whenever any organized 
Saxon force should appear. 

Guthrum, as we have said, headed the largest of 
these armies. He was aware of the increasing ex- 
citement that was spreading among the Saxon popu- 
lation, and he even heard rumors of the movements 



878] REASSEMBLING OF ARMY 159 

which the bodies of Saxons made, in going under 
their several chieftains to Selwood Forest. He ex- 
pected that some important movement was about to 
occur, but he had no idea that preparations so ex- 
tended, and for so decisive a demonstration, were so 
far advanced. He remained, therefore, at his camp 
at Edendune, gradually completing his arrangements 
for his summer campaign, but making no preparations 
for resisting any sudden or violent attack. 

When all was ready, Alfred put himself at the 
head of the forces which had collected at the Egbert 
Stone, or, as it is quaintly spelled in some of the old 
accounts, Ecgbyrth-stan. There is a place called 
Brixstan in that vicinity now, which may possibly be 
the same name modified and abridged by the lapse 
of time. Alfred moved forward toward Guthrum's 
camp. He went only a part of the way the first day, 
intending to finish the march by getting into the im- 
mediate vicinity of the enemy on the morrow. He 
succeeded in accomplishing this object, and encamped 
the next night at a place called /Ecglea* on an emi- 
nence from which he could reconnoiter, from a great 
distance, the position of the army. 

That night, as he was sleeping in his tent, he had 
a remarkable dream. He dreamed that his relative, 



*Some think that this place is the modern Leigh; others, that it 
was Highley; either of which names might have been deduced from 
/Ecglea. 



i6o ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

St. Neot, who has been already rnentioned as the 
chaplain or priest who reproved him so severely for 
his sins in the early part of his reign, appeared to 
him. The apparition bid him not fear the immense 
army of pagans whom he was going to encounter on 
the morrow. God, he said, had accepted his peni- 
tence, and was now about to take him under his 
special protection. The calamities which had befallen 
him were sent in judgment to punish the pride and 
arrogance which he had manifested in the early part 
of his reign; but his faults had been expiated by the 
sufferings he had endured, and by the penitence and 
the piety which they had been the means of awaken- 
ing in his heart; and now he might go forward into 
the battle without fear, as God was about to give 
him the victory over all his enemies. 

The king related his dream the next morning to 
his army. The enthusiasm and ardor which the chief- 
tains and the men had felt before were very much 
increased by this assurance of success. They broke 
up their encampment, therefore, and commenced the 
march, which was to bring them, before many hours, 
into the presence of the enemy, with great alacrity 
and eager expectations of success. 



CHAPTER X. 
The Victory over the Danes. 

Alfred puts his army in motion. — Position of Guthrum. — The battle. — Defeat 
of the Danes. — Flight of the Danes. — Pursuit of the Saxons. — The 
Danes shut themselves up in a castle. — Elation of the Saxons. — Hope- 
less condition of the Danes. — Surrender of Guthrum. — The Saxons and 
Danes equally aggressors. — Their relations. — Impossibility of expelling 
the Danes. — Wise policy.— Alfred's generosity. — Terms offered Guthrum. 

— Guthrum agrees to become a Christian. — Sudden change in his affairs. 

— The terms accepted.— The Danes liberated. — Probable effects of Guth- 
rum's baptism. — The ceremonies. — Guthrum'snew name. — Public festiv- 
ities. — Treaty between Alfred and Guthrum. — Kingdom of the latter. — 
Guthrum faithful to his convenant. — Fundamental laws settled. — Guth- 
rum's services. — Alfred organizes his government. — Continued trouble 
from the Daues. — Alfred's character.— Alfred's kindness of heart. — The 
child in the eagle's nest. 

NCOURAGED by his dream, and animated by the 
number and the elation of his followers, Alfred 
led his army onward toward the part of the 
country where the camp of the enemy lay. He in- 
tended to surprise them; and. although Guthrum had 
heard vague rumors that some great Saxon move- 
ment was in train, he viewed the sudden appearance 
of this larg.e and well-organized army with amaze- 
ment. 

He had possession of the hill near Edendune, 
which has been already described. He had established 

M. of H.— is-:i ■ (l6l) 



i62 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

his head-quarters here, and made his strongest fortifi- 
cations on the summit of the eminence. The main 
body of his forces were, however, encamped upon 
the plain, over which they extended, in vast num- 
bers, far and wide. Alfred halted his men to change 
the order of march into the order of battle. Here he 
made an address to his men. As no time was to be 
lost, he spoke but a few words. He reminded them 
that they were to contend, that day, to rescue them- 
selves and their country from the intolerable oppres- 
sion of a horde of pagan idolaters; that God was on 
their side, and had promised them the victory; and 
he urged them to act like men, so as to deserve the 
success and happiness which was in store for them. 

The army then advanced to the attack, the Danes 
having been drawn out hastily, but with as much 
order as the suddenness of the call would allow, to 
meet them. When near enough for their arrows to 
take effect, the long line of Alfred's troops discharged 
their arrows. They then advanced to the attack with 
lances; but soon these and all other weapons which 
kept the combatants at a distance were thrown aside, 
and it became a terrible conflict with swords, man to 
man. 

It was not long before the Danes began to yield. 
They were not sustained by the strong assurance of 
victory, nor by the desperate determination which 
animated the Saxons. The flight soon became gen- 



878] SAXON VICTORY 163 

eral. They could not gain the fortification on the 
hill, for Alfred had forced his way in between the 
encampment on the plains and the approaches to 
the hill. The Danes, consequently, not being able to 
find refuge in either part of the position they had 
taken, fled altogether from the field, pursued by Al- 
fred's victorious columns as fast as they could follow. 
Guthrum succeeded, by great and vigorous exer- 
tions, in rallying his men, or, at least, in so far col- 
lecting and concentrating the separate bodies of the 
fugitives as to change the flight into a retreat, having 
some semblance of military order. Vast numbers had 
been left dead upon the field. Others had been taken 
prisoners. Others still had become hopelessly dis- 
persed, having fled from the field of battle in diverse 
directions, and wandered so far, in their terror, that 
they had not been able to rejoin their leader in his 
retreat. Then, great numbers of those who pressed 
on under Guthrum's command, exhausted by fatigue, 
or spent and fainting from their wounds, sank down 
by the way-side to die, while their comrades, intent 
only upon their own safety, pressed incessantly on. 
The retreating army was thus, in a short time, re- 
duced to a small fraction of its original force. This 
remaining body, with Guthrum at their head, con- 
tinued their retreat until they reached a castle which 
promised them protection. They poured in over the 
drawbridges and through the gates of this fortress in 



i64 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

extreme confusion; and feeling suddenly, and for the 
moment, entirely relieved at their escape from the 
imminence of the immediate danger, they shut them- 
selves in. 

The finding of such a retreat would have been 
great good fortune for these wretched fugitives if there 
had been any large force in the country to come soon to 
their deliverance; but, as they were without provisions 
and without water, they soon began to perceive that, 
unless they obtained some speedy help from without, 
they had only escaped the Saxon lances and swords 
to die a ten times more bitter death of thirst and fam- 
ine; and there was no force to relieve them. The 
army which had been thus defeated was the great 
central force of the Danes upon the island. The other 
detachments and independent bands which were scat- 
tered about the land were thunderstruck at the news 
of this terrible defeat. The Saxons, too, were every 
where aroused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm at 
the reappearance of their king and the tidings of his 
victory. The whole country was in arms. Guthrum, 
however, shut up in his castle, and closely invested 
with Alfred's forces, had no means of knowing 
what was passing without. His numbers were 
so small in comparison with those besieging him 
that it would have been madness for him to have at- 
tempted a sally; and he would not surrender. He 
waited day after day, hoping against hope that some 



878] SAXON VICTORY 165 

succor would come. His half-famished sentinels gazed 
from the watch-towers of the castle all around, look- 
ing for some cloud of distant dust, or weapon glancing 
in the sun, which might denote the approach of friends 
coming to their rescue. This lasted fourteen days. 
At the end of that time, the number within this 
wretched prison who were raving in the delirium of 
famine and thirst, or dying in agony, became too great 
for Guthrum to persist any longer. He surrendered. 
Alfred was once more in possession of his kingdom. 
During the fourteen days that elapsed between the 
victory on the field of battle and the final surrender 
of Guthrum, Alfred, feeling that the power was now 
in his hands, had had ample time to reflect on the 
course which he should pursue with his subjugated 
enemies; and the result to which he came, and the 
measure which he adopted, evince, as much as any 
act of his life, the greatness, and originality, and 
nobleness of his character. Here were two distinct 
and independent races on the same island, that had 
been engaged for many years in a most fierce and 
sanguinary struggle, each gaining at times a tempo- 
rary and partial victory, but neither able entirely to 
subdue or exterminate the other. The Danes, it is 
true, might be considered as the aggressors in this 
contest, and, as such, wholly in the wrong; but then, 
on the other hand, it was to be remembered that the 
ancesters of the Saxons had been guilty of precisely 



i66 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

the same aggressions upon the Britons, who held 
the island before them; so that the Danes were, 
after all, only intruding upon intruders. It was, be- 
sides, the general maxim of the age, that the terri- 
tories of the world were prizes open for competition, 
and that the right to possess and to govern vested 
naturally and justly in those who could show them- 
selves the strongest. Then, moreover, the Danes had 
been now for many years in Britain. Vast numbers 
had quietly settled on agricultural lands. They had 
become peaceful inhabitants. They had established, 
in many cases, friendly relations with the Saxons. 
They had intermarried with them; and the two races, 
instead of appearing, as at first, simply as two hostile 
armies of combatants contending on the field, had 
been, for some years, acquiring the character of a 
mixed population, established and settled, though het- 
erogeneous, and, in some sense, antagonistic still. To 
root out all these people, intruders though they were, 
and send them back again across the German Ocean, 
to regions where they no longer had friends or home, 
would have been a desperate — in fact, an impossible 
undertaking. 

Alfred saw ail these things. He took, in fact, a 
general, and comprehensive, and impartial view of the 
whole subject, instead of regarding it, as most conquer- 
ors in his situation would have done, from a partisan, 
that is, an exclusively Saxon point of view. He saw 



878] SAXON VICTORT 167 

how impossible it was to undo what had been done, 
and wisely determined to take things as they were, 
and make the best of the present situation of affairs, 
leaving the past, and aiming only at accomplishing 
the best that was now attainable for the future. It 
would be well if all men who are engaged in quar- 
rels which they vainly endeavor to settle by discussing 
and disputing about what is past and gone, and can 
now never be recalled, would follow his example. In 
all such cases we should say, let the past be forgot- 
ten, and, taking things as they now are, let us see 
what we can do to secure peace and happiness in 
future. 

The pohcy which Alfred determined to adopt was, 
not to attempt the utter extirpation of the Danes 
from England, but only to expel the armed forces 
from his own dominions, allowing those peaceably 
disposed to remain in quiet possession of such lands 
in other parts of the island as they already occupied. 
Instead, therefore, of treating Guthrum with harshness 
and severity as a captive enemy, he told him that he 
was wilHng not only to give him his liberty, but to 
regard him, on certain conditions, as a friend and an 
ally, and allow him to reign as a king over that part 
of England which his countrymen possessed, and 
which was beyond Alfred's own frontiers. These 
conditions were, that Guthrum was to go away with 
all his forces and followers out of Alfred's kingdom, 



i68 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

under solemn oaths never to return; that he was to 
confine himself thenceforth to the southeastern part of 
England, a territory from which the Saxon govern- 
ment had long disappeared, that he was to give hos- 
tages for the faithful fulfillment of these stipulations, 
without, however, receiving on his part any hostages 
from Alfred. There was one other stipulation, more 
extraordinary than all the rest, viz., that Guthrum 
should become a convert to Christianity, and publicly 
avow his adhesion to the Saxon faith by being bap- 
tized in the presence of the leaders of both armies, 
in the most open and solemn manner. In this pro- 
posed baptism, Alfred himself would stand his god- 
father. 

This idea of winning over a pagan soldier to the 
Christian Church as the price of his ransom from 
famine and death in the castle to which his direst 
enemy had driven him, — this enemy himself, the in- 
strument thus of so rude a mode of conversion, to be 
the sponsor of the new communicant's religious pro- 
fession, — was one in keeping, it is true, with the spirit 
of the times, but still it is one which, under the cir- 
cumstances of this case, only a mind of great origi- 
nahty and power would have conceived of or at- 
tempted to carry into effect. Guthrum might well 
be astonished at this unexpected turn in his affairs. 
A few days before, he saw himself on the brink of 
utter and absolute destruction. Shut up with his 



878] SAXON VICTORY 169 

famished soldiers in a gloomy castle, with the enemy, 
bitter and implacable, as he supposed, thundering at 
the gates, the only alternatives before him seemed to 
be to die of starvation and frensy within the walls 
which covered him, or by a cruel military execution 
in the event of surrender. He surrendered at last, as 
it would seem, only because the utmost that human 
cruelty can inflict is more tolerable than the horrid 
agonies of thirst and hunger. 

We can not but hope that Alfred was led, in some 
degree, by a generous principle of Christian forgiveness 
in proposing the terms which he did to his fallen 
enemy, and also that Guthrum, in accepting them, 
was influenced, in part at least, by emotions of grati- 
tude and by admiration of the high example of Chris- 
tian virtue which Alfred thus exhibited. At any rate, 
he did accept them. The army of the Danes were 
liberated from their confinement, and commenced their 
march to the eastward; Guthrum himself, attended 
by thirty of his chiefs and many other followers, be- 
came Alfred's guest for some weeks, until the most 
pressing measures for the organization of Alfred's gov- 
ernment could be attended to, and the necessary 
preparations for the baptism could be made. At 
length, some weeks after the surrender, the parties 
all repaired together, now firm friends and allies, to a 
place near Ethelney, where the ceremony of baptism 
was to be performed. 



lyo ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

The admission of this pagan chieftain into the 
Christian Church did not probably mark any real 
change in his opinions on the question of paganism 
and Christianity, but it was not the less important in 
its consequences on that account. The moral effect 
of it upon the minds of his followers was of great 
value. It opened the way for their reception of the 
Christian faith, if any of them should be disposed to 
receive it. Then it changed wholly the feeling which 
prevailed among the Saxon soldiery, and also the 
Saxon chieftains, in respect to these enemies. A great 
deal of the bitterness of exasperation with which they 
had regarded them arose from the fact that they were 
pagans, the haters and despisers of the rites and in- 
stitutions of religion. Guthrum's approaching baptism 
was to change all this; and Alfred, in leading him to 
the baptismal font, was achieving, in the estimation 
not only of all England, but of France and of Rome, 
a far greater and nobler victory than when he con- 
quered his armies on the field of Edendune. 

The various ceremonies connected with the bap- 
tism were protracted through several days. They 
were commenced at a place called Aulre, near Ethel- 
ney, where there was a religious establishment and 
priests to perform the necessary rites. The new 
convert was clothed in white garments, the symbol 
of purity, then customarily worn by candidates for 
baptism, and was covered with a mystic veil. They 



878] SAXON VICTORY 171 

gave Guthrum a new name — a Christian, that is, a 
Saxon name. Converted pagans received always a 
new name, in those days, when baptized; and our 
common phrase, the Christian name, has arisen from 
the circumstance. Guthrum's Christian name was 
Ethelstan. Alfred was his godfather. After the bap- 
tism the whole party proceeded to a town a few 
miles distant, which Alfred had decided to make a 
royal residence, and there other ceremonies connected 
with the new convert's admission to the Church were 
performed, the whole ending with a series of great 
public festivities and rejoicings. 

A very full and formal treaty of peace and amity 
was now concluded between the two sovereigns; for 
Guthrum was styled in the treaty a king, and was to 
hold, in the dominions assigned him to the eastward 
of Alfred's realm, an independent jurisdiction. He 
agreed, however, by this treaty, to confine himself, 
from that time forward^ to the limits thus assigned. 
If the reader v/ishes to see what part of England it 
was which Guthrum was thus to hold, he can easily 
identify it by finding upon the map the following 
counties, which now occupy the same territory, viz., 
Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, and part of 
Herefordshire, The population of all this region con- 
sisted already, in a great measure, of Danes. It was 
the part most easily accessible from the German 
Ocean, by means of the Thames and the Medway, 



lya ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

and it had, accordingly, become the chief seat of the 
Northmen's power. 

Guthrum not only agreed to confine himself to the 
limits thus marked out, but also to consider himself 
henceforth as Alfred's friend and ally in the event of 
any new bands of adventurers arriving on the coast, 
and to join Alfred in his endeavors to resist them. 
In hoping that he would fulfill this obligation, Alfred 
did not rely altogether on Guthrum's oaths or prom- 
ises, or even on the hostages that he held. He had 
made it for his interest to fulfill them. By giving 
him peaceable possession of this territory, after having, 
by his victories, impressed him with a very high 
idea of his own great military resources and power, 
he had placed his conquered enemy under very strong 
inducements to be satisfied with what he now pos- 
sessed, and to make common cause with Alfred in 
resisting the encroachments of any new marauders. 

Guthrum was therefore honestly resolved on keep- 
ing his faith with his new ally; and when all these 
stipulations were made, and the treaties were signed, 
and the ceremonies of the baptism all performed, 
Alfred dismissed his guest, with many presents and 
high honors. 

There is some uncertainty whether Alfred did not, 
in addition to the other stipulations under which he 
bound Guthrum, reserve to himself the superior sov- 
ereignty over Guthrum's dominions, in such a manner 



878] SAXON VICTORY 173 

that Guthrum, though complimented in the treaty 
with the title of king, was, after all, only a sort of 
viceroy, holding his throne under Alfred as his liege 
lord. One thing is certain, that Alfred took care, 
in his treaty with Guthrum, to settle all the funda- 
mental laws of both kingdoms, making them the 
same for both, as if he foresaw the complete and en- 
tire union which was ultimately to take place, and 
wished to facilitate the accomplishment of this end 
by having the political and social constitution of the 
two states brought at once into harmony with each 
other. 

It proved, in the end, that Guthrum was faithful 
to his obligations and promises. He settled himself 
quietly in the dominions which the treaty assigned 
to him, and made no more attempts to encroach 
upon Alfred's realm. Whenever other parties of 
Danes came upon the coast, as they sometimes did, 
they found no favor or countenance from him. They 
came, in some cases, expecting his co-operation and 
aid; but he always refused it, and by this discour- 
agement, as well as by open resistance, he drove 
many bands away, turning the tide of invasion south- 
ward into France, and other regions on the Con^ti- 
nent. Alfred, in the mean time, gave his whole time 
and attention to organizing the various departments 
of his government, to planning and building towns, 
repairing and fortifying castles, opening roads, estab- 



174 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

lishing courts of justice, and arranging and setting in 
operation the complicated machinery necessary in the 
working of a well-conducted social state. The nature 
and operation of some of his plans will be described 
more fully in the next chapter. 

In concluding this chapter, we will add, that not- 
withstanding his victory over Guthrum, and Guthrum's 
subsequent good faith, Alfred never enjoyed an abso- 
lute peace, but during the whole remainder of his 
reign was more or less molested with parties of 
Northmen, who came, from time to time, to land on 
English shores, and who met sometimes with partial 
and temporary success in their depredations. The 
most serious of these attempts occurred near the 
close of Alfred's life, and will be hereafter described. 

The generosity and the nobleness of mind which 
Alfred manifested in his treatment of Guthrum made 
a great impression upon mankind at the time, and 
have done a great deal to elevate the character of our 
hero in every subsequent age. All admire such gener- 
osity in others, however slow they may be to practice 
it themselves. It seems a very easy virtue when we 
look upon an exhibition of it like this, where we feel 
no special resentments ourselves against the person 
thus nobly forgiven. We find it, however, a very 



878] SAXON VICTORY 175 

hard virtue to practice, when a case occurs requiring 
the exercise of it toward a person who has done us 
an injury. Let those who think that in Alfred's situa- 
tion they should have acted as he did, look around 
upon the circle of their acquaintance, and see whether 
it is easy for them to pursue a similar course toward 
their personal enemies — those who have thwarted 
and circumvented them in their plans, or slandered 
them, or treated them with insult and injury. By ob- 
serving how hard it is to change our own resent- 
ments to feelings of forgiveness and good will, we 
can the better appreciate Alfred's treatment of Guth- 
rum. 

Alfred was famed during all his life for the kind- 
ness of his heart, and a thousand stories were told in 
his day of his interpositions to right the wronged, to 
relieve the distressed, to comfort the afflicted, and to 
befriend the unhappy. On one occasion, as is said, 
when he was hunting in a wood, he heard the piteous 
cries of a child, which seemed to come from the air 
above his head. It was found, after much looking 
and listening, that the sounds proceeded from an 
eagle's nest upon the top of a lofty tree. On climb- 
ing to the nest, they found the child within, scream- 
ing with pain and terror. The eagle had carried it 
there in its talons for a prey. Alfred brought down 
the boy, and, after making fruitless inquiries to find 



176 ALFRED THE GREAT [878 

his father and mother, adopted him for his own son, 
gave him a good education, and provided for him 
well in his future life. The story was all, very prob- 
ably, a fabrication; but the characters of men are 
sometimes very strikingly indicated by the kind of 
stories that are invented concerning them. 




CHAPTER XI. 

Character of Alfred's Reign. 

Alfred's humanity and benevolence. — His love of peace. — Character of the 
materials upon which Alfred operated. — The difiSculties vvith which 
Alfred had to contend. — Alfred's sufferings from disease. — His patience. 
— Alfred's interest iu learning. — Asser, the Welsh bishop. — Alfred's pro- 
posals to Asser. — Asser's acceptance. — Alfred and Asser. — Alfred's I,atin 
book. — Alfred becomes an author. — Printing and circulation of books. — 
Influence of Alfred's writings. — Founding of the University of Oxford. — 
Situation of Oxford. — Measures of Alfred. — Alfred's personal charac- 
ter. — Reforms and improvements. — Alfred's equanimity. — His high and 
noble aims. — Alfred's solicitude for his country.— His diligence. — Plan 
for dividing time. — The wax candles. — Working of the system. — In- 
troduction of glass. — Ancient windows. — Invention of lanterns. — 
Alfred's division of his time. — Its wisdom. — Alfred's prosperity. — Troub- 
les from the Danes. 

ERHAPS the chief aspect in which King Alfred's 
character has attracted the attention of man- 
kind, is in the spirit of humanity and benev- 
olence which he manifested, and in the efforts which 
he made to cultivate the arts of peace, and to promote 
the intellectual and social welfare of his people, not- 
withstanding the warlike habits to which he was 
accustomed in his early years, and the warlike influ- 
ences which surrounded him during all his life. Every 
thing in the outward circumstances in which he was 

M. ofH.~i5— 12 (177) 



lyS ALFRED THE GREAT [880-890 

placed tended to make him a mere military hero. He 
saw, however, the superior greatness and glory of the 
work of laying the foundations of an extended and 
permanent power, by arranging in the best possible 
manner the internal organization of the social state. 
He saw that intelligence, order, justice, and system, 
prevailing in and governing the institutions of a 
country, constitute the true elements of its greatness, 
and he acted accordingly. 

It is true, he had good materials to work with. 
He had the Anglo-Saxon race to act upon at the 
time, a race capable of appreciating and entering into 
his plans; and he has had the same race to carry 
them on, for the ten centuries which have elapsed 
since he laid his foundations. As no other race 
of men but Anglo-Saxons could have produced an 
Alfred, so, probably, no other race could have car- 
ried out such plans as Alfred formed. It is a race 
which has always been distinguished, like Alfred their 
great prototype and model, for a certain cool and in- 
trepid energy in war, combined with and surpassed 
by the industry, the system, the efficiency, and the 
perseverance with which they pursue and perfect all 
the arts of peace. They systematize every thing. 
They arrange — they organize. Every thing in their 
hands takes form, and advances to continual improve- 
ment. Even while the rest of the world remain inert, 
they are active. When the arts and improvements of 



880-890] CHARACTER OF REIGN 179 

life are stationary among other nations, they are 
always advancing with them. It is a people that is 
always making new discoveries, pressing forward to 
new enterprises, framing new laws, constituting new 
combinations and developing new powers; until now 
after the lapse of a thousand years, the little island 
feeds and clothes, directly or indirectly, a very large 
portion of the human race, and directs, in a great 
measure, the politics of the world. 

Whether Alfred reasoned upon the capacities of the 
people whom he ruled, and foresaw their future power, 
or whether he only followed the simple impulses of 
his own nature in the plans which he formed and the 
measures which he adopted, we can not know; but 
we know that, in fact, he devoted his chief attention, 
during all the years of his reign, to perfecting in the 
highest degree the internal organization of his realm, 
considered as a great social community. His people 
were in a very rude, and in fact, almost half-savage 
state when he commenced his career. He had every 
thing to do, and yet he seems to have had no favor- 
able opportunities for doing any thing. 

In the first place, his time and attention were dis- 
tracted, during his whole reign, by continued diffi- 
culties and contentions with various hordes of Danes, 
even after his peace with Guthrum. These troubles, 
and the military preparations and movements to which 
they would naturally give rise, would seem to have 



i8o ALFRED THE GREAT [880-890 

been sufficient to have occupied fully all the powers 
of his mind, and to have prevented him from doing 
any thing effectual for the internal improvement of his 
kingdom. 

Then, besides, there was another difficulty with 
which Alfred had to contend, which one might have 
supposed would have paralyzed all his energies. He 
suffered all his life from some mysterious and painful 
internal disease, the nature of which, precisely, is not 
known, as the allusions to it, though very frequent 
throughout his life, are very general, and the physi- 
cians of the day, who probably were not very skill- 
ful, could not determine what it was, or do any thing 
effectual to relieve it. The disease, whatever it may 
have been, was a source of continual uneasiness, and 
some times of extreme and terrible suffering. Alfred 
bore all the pain which it caused him with exemplary 
patience; and, though he could not always resist the 
tendency to discouragement and depression with which 
the perpetual presence of such a torment wears upon 
the soul, he did not allow it to diminish his exertions, 
or suspend, at any time, the ceaseless activity with 
which he labored for the welfare of the people of his 
realm. 

Alfred attached great importance to the education 
of his people, it was not possible, in those days, to 
educate the mass, for there were no books, and no 
means of producing them in sufficient numbers to 



.880-890] CHARACTER OF REIGN 181 

supply any general demand. Books, in those days, 
were extremely costly, as they had all to be written 
laboriously by hand. The great mass of the popula- 
tion, therefore, who were engaged in the daily toil of 
cultivating the land, were necessarily left in igno- 
rance; but Alfred made every effort in his power to 
awaken a love for learning and the arts among the 
higher classes. He set them, in fact, an efficient ex- 
ample in his own case, by pressing forward dihgently 
in his own studies, even in the busiest periods of his 
reign. The spirit and manner in which he did this 
are well illustrated by the plan he pursued in study- 
ing Latin, It was this: 

He had a friend in his court, a man of great Ht- 
erary attainments and great piety, whose name was 
Asser. Asser was a bishop in Wales when Alfred- 
first heard of his fame as a man of learning and abil- 
ities, and Alfred sent for him to come to his court 
and make him a visit. Alfred was very much pleased 
with what he saw of Asser at this interview, and 
proposed to him to leave his preferments in Wales, 
which were numerous and important, and come into 
his kingdom, and he would give him greater prefer- 
ments there. Asser hesitated. Alfred then proposed 
to him to spend six months every year in England, 
and the remaining six in Wales. Asser said that he 
could not give an answer even to this proposal till he 



i82 ALFRED TFIE GREAT [880-890 

had returned home and consulted with the monks and 
other clergy under his charge there. He would, how- 
ever, he said, at least come back and see Alfred again 
within the next six months, and give him his final 
answer. Then, after having spent four days in Al- 
fred's court, he went away. 

The six months passed away and he did not re- 
turn. Alfred sent a messenger into Wales to ascer- 
tain the reason. The messenger found that Asser was 
sick. His friends, however, had advised that he 
should accede to Alfred's proposal to spend six months 
of the year in England, as they thought that by that 
means, through his influence with Alfred, he would 
be the better able to protect and advance the interests 
of their monasteries and establishments in Wales. So 
Asser went to England, and became during six months 
in the year Alfred's constant friend and teacher. In 
the course of time, Alfred placed him at the head of 
some of the most important establishments and eccle- 
siastical charges in England. 

One day — it was eight or nine years after Alfred's 
victory over Guthrum and settlement of the kingdom 
— the king and Asser were engaged in conversation 
in the royal apartments, and Asser quoted some Latin 
phrase with which, on its being explained, Alfred 
was very much pleased, and he asked Asser to write 
it down for him in his book. So saying, he took 
from his pocket a little book of prayers and other 



880-890] CHARACTER OF REIGN 183 

pieces of devotion, which he was accustomed to carry 
with him for daily use. It was, of course, in manu- 
script. Asser looked over it to find a space where 
he could write the Latin quotation, but there was no 
convenient vacancy. He then proposed to Alfred that 
he should make for him another small book, ex- 
pressly for Latin quotations, with explanations of their 
meaning, if Alfred chose to make them, in the Anglo- 
Saxon tongue. Alfred highly approved of this sug- 
gestion. The bishop prepared the little parchment 
volume, and it became gradually filled with passages 
of Scripture, in Latin, and striking sentiments, briefly 
and tersely expressed, extracted from the writings of 
the Roman poets or of the fathers of the Church. 
Alfred wrote opposite to each quotation its meaning, 
expressed in his own language; and as he made the 
book his constant companion, and studied it continu- 
ally, taking great interest in adding to its stores, it 
was the means of communicating to him soon a very 
considerable knowledge of the language, and was the 
foundation of that extensive acquaintance with it 
which he subsequently acquired. 

Alfred made great efforts to promote in every way 
the intellectual progress and improvement of his peo- 
ple. He wrote and translated books, which were 
published so far as it was possible to publish books 
in those days, that is, by having a moderate number 
of copies transcribed and circulated among those who 



i84 ALFRED THE GREAT [880-890 

could read them. Such copies were generally de- 
posited at monasteries, and abbeys, and other such 
places, where learned men were accustomed to as- 
semble. These writings of Alfred exerted a wide in- 
fluence during his day. They remained in manuscript 
until the art of printing was invented, when many of 
them were printed; others remain in manuscript in 
the various museums of England, where visitors look 
at them as curiosities, all worn and corroded as they 
are, and almost illegible by time. These books, 
though they exerted great influence at the time when 
they were written, are of little interest or value now. 
They express ideas in morals and philosophy, some 
of which have become so universally diffused as to 
be commonplace at the present day, while others 
would now be discarded, as not in harmony with 
the ideas or the philosophy of the times. 

One of the greatest and most important of the 
measures which Alfred adopted for the intellectual 
improvement of his people was the founding of the 
great University of Oxford. Oxford was Alfred's resi- 
dence and capital during a considerable part of his 
reign. It is situated on the Thames, in the bosom of 
a delightful valley, where it calmly reposes in the 
midst of fields and meadows as verdant and beautiful 
as the imagination can conceive. There was a mon- 
astery at Oxford before Alfred's day, and for many cen- 



880-890] CHARACTER OF REIGN 185 

turies after his time acts of endowment were passed 
and ciiarters granted, some of which were perhaps of 
greater importance than those which emanated from 
Alfred himself. Thus some carry back the history of 
this famous university beyond Alfred's time; others con- 
sider that the true origin of the present establishment 
should be assigned to a later date than his day. Alfred 
certainly adopted very important measures at Oxford for 
organizing and establishing schools of instruction and 
assembling learned men there from various parts of 
the world, so that he soon made it a great center 
and seat of learning, and mankind have been conse- 
quently inclined to award to him the honor of having 
laid the foundations of the vast superstructure which 
has since grown up on that consecrated spot. Ox- 
ford is now a city of ancient and venerable colleges. 
Its silent streets; its grand quadrangles; its churches, 
and chapels, and libraries; its secluded walks; its 
magnificent, though old and crumbling architecture, 
make it, even to the passing traveler, one of the 
wonders of England; and by the influence which it 
has exerted for the past ten centuries on the intel- 
lectual advancement of the human race, it is really 
one of the wonders of the world. 

Alfred repaired the castles which had become di- 
lapidated in the wars; he rebuilt the ruined cities, 
organized municipal governments for them, restored 
the monasteries, and took great pains to place men of 



i86 ALFRED THE GREAT [880-890 

learning and piety in charge of tliem. He revised 
the laws of the kingdom, and arranged and systema- 
tized them in the most perfect manner which was 
possible in times so rude. 

Alfred's personal character gave him great influence 
among his people, and disposed them to acquiesce 
readily in the vast innovations and improvements which 
he introduced — changes which were so radical and 
affected so extensively the whole structure of society, 
and all the customs of social life, that any ordinary 
sovereign would have met with great opposition in 
his attempt to introduce them; but Alfred possessed 
such a character, and proceeded in such a way in 
introducing his improvements and reforms, that he 
seems to have awakened no jealousy and to have 
aroused no resistance. 

He was of a very calm, quiet, and placid temper 
of mind. The crosses and vexations which disturb 
and irritate ordinary men seemed never to disturb his 
equanimity. He was patient and forbearing, never 
expecting too much of those whom he employed, or 
resenting angrily the occasional neglects or failures in 
duty on their part, which he well knew must fre- 
quently occur. He was never elated by prosperity, 
nor made moody and morose by the turning of the 
tide against him. In a word, he was a philosopher, 
of a calm, and quiet, and happy temperament. He 
knew well that every man in going through life, 



880-890] CHARACTER OF REIGN 187 

whatever his rank and station, must encounter the 
usual alternations of sunshine and storm. He deter- 
mined that these alternations should not mar his hap- 
piness, nor disturb the repose of his soul; that he 
would, on the other hand, keeping all quiet within, 
press calmly and steadily forward in the accomplish- 
ment of the vast objects to which he felt that his life 
was to be given. He was, accordingly, never anxious 
or restless, never impatient or fretful, never excited 
or wild; but always calm, considerate, steady, and 
persevering, he infused his own spirit into all around 
him. They saw him governed by fixed and perma- 
nent principles of justice and of duty in all that he 
planned, and in every measure that he resorted to in 
the execution of his plans. It was plain that his 
great ruling motive was a true and honest desire to 
promote the welfare and prosperity of his people, and 
the internal peace, and order, and happiness of his 
realm, without any selfish or sinister aims of his own. 
In fact, it seemed as if there were no selfish or 
sinister ends that possessed any charms for Alfred's 
mind. He had no fondness or taste for luxury or 
pleasure, or for aggrandizing himself in the eyes of 
others by pomp and parade. It is true that, as was 
stated in a former chapter, he was charged in 
early life with a tendency to some kinds of wrong 
indulgence; but these charges, obscure and doubtful 
as they were, pertained only to the earliest periods of 



1 88 ALFRED THE GREAT [880-890 

his career, before the time of his seclusion. Through 
all the middle and latter portions of his life, the sole 
motive of his conduct seems to have been a desire to 
lay broad, and deep, and lasting foundations for the 
permanent welfare and prosperity of his realm. 

It resulted from the nature of the measures which 
Alfred undertook to effect, that they brought upon 
him daily a vast amount of labor, as such measures 
always involve a great deal of minute' detail. Alfred 
could only accomplish this great mass of duty by 
means of the most unremitting industry and the most 
systematic and exact division of time. There were 
no clocks or watches in those days, and yet it was 
very necessary to have some plan for keeping the 
time, in order that his business might go on regularly, 
and also that the movements and operations of his 
large household might proceed without confusion. 
Alfred invented a plan. It was as follows: 

He observed that the wax candles which were 
used in his palace and in the churches burned very 
regularly, and with greater or less rapidity according 
to their size. He ordered some experiments to be 
made, and finally, by means of them, he determined 
on the size of a candle which should burn three 
inches in an hour. It is said that the weight of wax 
which he used for each candle was twelve penny- 
weights, that is, but little more than half an ounce. 



880-890] CHARACTER OF REIGN 189 

which would make, one would suppose, a taper 
rather than a candle. There is, however, great doubt 
about the value of the various denominations of 
weight and measure, and also of money used in 
those days. However this may be, the candles were 
each a foot long, and of such size that each would 
burn four hours. They were divided into inches, and 
marked, so that each inch corresponded with a third 
of an hour, or twenty minutes. A large quantity of 
these candles were prepared, and a person in one of 
the chapels was appointed to keep a succession of 
them burning, and to ring the bells, or give the other 
signals, whatever they might be, by which the house- 
hold was regulated, at the successive periods of time 
denoted by their burning. 

As each of these candles was one foot long, and 
burned three inches in an hour, it follows that it 
would last four hours; when this time was expired, 
the attendant who had the apparatus in charge lighted 
another. There were, of course, six required for the 
whole twenty-four hours. The system worked very 
well, though there was one difficulty that occasioned 
some trouble in the outset, which, however, was not 
much to be regretted after all, since the remedying of 
it awakened the royal ingenuity anew, and led, in the 
end, to adding to Alfred's other glories the honor of 
being the inventor of lanterns! 

The difficulty was, that the wind, which came in 



I90 ALFRED THE GREAT [880-890 

very freely in those days, even in royal residences, 
through the open windows, blew the flames of these 
horological candles about, so as to interfere quite 
seriously with the regularity of their burning. There 
was no glass for windows in those days, or, at least, 
very little. It had been introduced, it is said, in one 
instance, and that was in a monastery in the north 
of England. The abbot, whose name was Benedict, 
brought over some workmen from the Continent, 
where the art of making glass windows had been in- 
vented, and caused them to glaze some windows in 
his monastery. It was many years after this before 
glass came into general use even in churches, and 
palaces, and other costly buildings of that kind. In 
the mean time, windows were mere openings in 
stone walls, which could be closed only by shutters; 
and inasmuch as when closed they excluded the light 
as well as the air, they could ordinarily be shut only 
on one side of the apartment at a time — the side 
most exposed to the winds and storms. 

Alfred accordingly found that the flame of his can- 
dles was blown by the wind, which made the wax 
burn irregularly; and, to remedy the evil, he contrived 
the plan of protecting them by thin plates of horn. 
Horn, when softened by hot water, can easily be cut 
and fashioned into any shape, and, when very thin, 
is almost transparent. Alfred had these thin plates of 
horn prepared, and set into the sides of a box made 



880-890] CHARACTER OF REIGN 191 

open to receive them, thus forming a rude sort of a 
lantern, within which the time-keeping candles could 
burn in peace. Mankind have consequently given to 
King Alfred the credit of having invented lanterns. 

Having thus completed his apparatus for the cor- 
rect measurement of time, Alfred was enabled to be 
more and more systematic in the division and em- 
ployment of it. One of the historians of the day re- 
lates that his plan was to give one third of the twen- 
ty-four hours to sleep and refreshment, one third to 
business, and the remaining third to the duties of 
religion. Under this last head was probably included 
all those duties and pursuits which, by the custom.s 
of the day, were considered as pertaining to the 
Church, such as study, writing, and the consideration 
and management of ecclesiastical affairs. These duties 
were performed, in those days, almost always by 
clerical men, and in the retirement and seclusion of 
monasteries, and were thus regarded as in some 
sense reHgious duties. We must conclude that Alfred 
classed them thus, as he was a great student and 
writer all his days, and there is no other place than 
this third head to which the duties of this nature can 
be assigned. Thus understood, it was a very wise 
and sensible division; though eight hours daily for 
any long period of time, appropriated to services 
strictly devotional, would not seem to be a wise ar- 



192 ALFRED THE GREAT [880-890 

rangement, especially for a man in the prime of life, 
and in a position demanding the constant exercise of 
his powers in the discharge of active duties. 

Thus the years of Alfred's life passed away, his 
kingdom advancing steadily all the time in good gov- 
ernment, wealth, and prosperity. The country was 
not, however, yet freed entirely from the calamities 
and troubles arising from the hostility of the Danes. 
Disorders continually broke out among those who had 
settled in the land, and, in some instances, new 
hordes of invaders came in. These were, however, 
in most instances, easily subdued, and Alfred went 
on with comparatively little interruption for many 
years, in prosecuting the arts and improvements of 
peace. At last, however, toward the close of his life, 
a famous Northman leader, named Hastings, landed 
in England at the head of a large force, and made, 
before he was expelled, a great deal of trouble. An 
account of this invasion will be given in the next 
chapter. 




CHAPTER XII. 

The Close of Life. 

Invasion of Hastings. — His exploits on the Continent. — Hastings besieged in 
a church. — The place of landing. — Forces of the Danes. — Romney 
Marshes.— lyanding of Hastings. — Alfred marches to attack him. — 
Cautious policy of Alfred. — Negotiations. — Treachery. — Capture of 
Hastings's wife and children. — Successes of Hastings. — A turn of for- 
tune. — Desperate sally of the Danes. — They sail up the Thames. — 
Story of the diversion of the Thames. — The Danes lose ground.— Alfred 
builds a fleet. — It sails for the Isle of Wight. — Naval battle. — Discom.- 
fiture of the Saxons. — Hastings expelled. — Alfred devotes himself to 
peaceful avocations. — Administration of justice. — Alfred's children.^ 
Alfred's last days. — His parting advice to his son. — Alfred's death and 
burial. — I,asting honor to his memory. 

IT WAS twelve or fifteen years after Alfred's resto- 
ration to his kingdom, by means of the victory 
at Edendune, that the great invasion of Hastings 
occurred. That victory took place in the year 878. 
It was in the years 893-897 that Hastings and his 
horde of followers infested the island, and in 900 Al- 
fred died, so that his reign ended, as it had com- 
menced, with protracted and desperate conflicts with 
the Danes. 

Hastings was an old and successful soldier before 
he came to England. He had led a wild life for 
M. of H.— 15— 13 (193) 



194 ALFRED THE GREAT [893 

many years as a sea king on the German Ocean, per- 
forming deeds which in our day entail upon the per- 
petrator of them the infamy of piracy and murder, 
but which then entitled the hero of them to a very 
wide-spread and honorable fame. Afterward Hastings 
landed upon the Continent, and pursued, for a long 
time, a glorious career of victory and plunder in 
France. In these enterprises, the tide, indeed, some- 
times turned against him. On one occasion, for in- 
stance, he found himself obliged to give way before 
his enemies, and he retreated to a church, which he 
seized and fortified, making it his castle until a more 
favorable aspect of his affairs enabled him to issue 
forth from this retreat and take the field again. Still 
he was generally very successful in his enterprises; 
his terrible ferocity, and that of his savage followers, 
were dreaded in every part of the civilized world. 

Hastings had made one previous invasion of Eng- 
land; but Guthrum, faithful to his covenants with 
Alfred, repulsed him. But Guthrum was now dead, 
and Alfred had to contend against his formidable 
enemy alone. 

Hastings selected a point on the southern coast of 
England for his landing. Guthrum's Danes still con- 
tinued to occupy the eastern part of England, and 
Hastings went round on the southern coast until he 
got beyond their boundaries, as if he wished to avoid 
doing any thing directly to awaken their hostility. 



893] THE CLOSE OF LIFE 195 

Guthrum himself, while he lived, had evinced a de- 
termination to oppose Hastings's plans of invasion. 
Hastings did not know, now that Guthrum was dead, 
whether his successors would oppose him or not. 
He determined, at all events, to respect their territory, 
and so he passed along on the southern shore of 
England till he was beyond their limits, and then pre- 
pared to land. 

He had assembled a large force of his own, and he 
was joined, in addition to them, by many adventurers 
who came out to attach themselves to his expedition 
from the bays, and islands, and harbors which he 
passed on his way. His fleet amounted at least to 
two hundred and fifty vessels. They arrived, at length, 
at a part of the coast where there extends a vast 
tract of low and swampy land, which was then a wild 
and dismal morass. This tract, which is known in 
modern times by the name of the Romney Marshes, 
is of enormous extent, containing, as it does, fifty 
thousand acres. It is now reclaimed, and is defended 
by a broad and well-constructed dike from the inroads 
of the sea. In Hastings's time it was a vast waste of 
bogs and mire, utterly impassable except by means 
of a riven which, meandering sluggishly through the 
tangled wilderness of weeds and bushes in a deep, 
black stream, found an outlet at last into the sea. 

Hastings took his vessels into this river, and, fol- 
lowing its turnings for some miles, he conducted 



196 ALFRED THE GREAT [893 

them dt last to a place where he found more solid 
ground to land upon. But this ground, though solid, 
was almost as wild and solitary as the morass. It was 
a forest of vast extent, which showed no signs of hu- 
man occupancy, except that the peasants who lived in 
the surrounding regions had come down to the lowest 
point accessible, and were building a rude fortification 
there. Hastings attacked them and drove them away. 
Then, advancing a little further, until he found an ad- 
vantageous position, he built a strong fortress himself 
and established his army within its lines. 

His next measure was to land another force near 
the mouth of the Thames, and bring them into the 
country, until he found a strong position where he 
could intrench and fortify the second division as he 
had done the first. These two positions were but a 
short distance from each other. He made them the 
combined center of his operations, going from them 
in all directions in plundering excursions. Alfred soon 
raised an army and advanced to attack him; and 
these operations were the commencement of a long 
and tedious war. 

A detailed description of the events of this war, 
the marches and countermarches, the battles and 
sieges, the various success, first of one party and then 
of the other, given historically in the order of time, 
would be as tedious to read as the war itself was to 
endure. Alfred was very cautious in all his opera- 



893] THE CLOSE OF LIFE 197 

tions, preferring rather to trust to the plan of wearing 
out the enemy by cutting off their resources and hem- 
ming them constantly in, than to incur the risk of 
great decisive battles. In fact, watchfulness, caution, 
and delay are generally the policy of the invaded 
when a powerful force has succeeded in establishing 
itself among them; while, on the other hand, the hope 
of invaders lies ordinarily in prompt and decided 
action. Alfred was well aware of this, and made all 
his arrangements with a view to cutting off Hastings's 
supplies, shutting him up into as narrow a compass 
as possible, heading him off in all his predatory ex- 
cursions, intercepting all detachments, and thus re- 
ducing him at length to the necessity of surrender. 

At one time, soon after the war began, Hastings, 
true to the character of his nation for treachery and 
stratagem, pretended that he was ready to surrender, 
and opened a negotiation for this purpose. He agreed 
to leave the kingdom if Alfred would allow him to de- 
part peaceably, and also, which was a point of great 
importance in Alfred's estimation, to have his two 
sons baptized. While, however, these negotiations 
were going on between the two camps, Alfred sud- 
denly found that the main body of Hastings's army had 
stolen away in the rear, and were marching off by 
stealth to another part of the country. The negotia- 
tions were, of course, immediately abandoned, and 
Alfred set off with all his forces in full pursuit. All 



198 ALFRED THE GREAT [893 

hopes of peace were given up, and the usual series 
of sieges, maneuverings, battles, and retreats was re- 
sumed again. 

On one occasion Alfred succeeded in taking pos- 
session of Hastings's camp, when he had left it in 
security, as he supposed, to go off for a time by sea 
on an expedition. Alfred's soldiers found Hastings's 
wife and children in the camp, and tooI<; them prison- 
ers. They sent the terrified captives to Alfred, to 
suffer, as they supposed, the long and cruel confine- 
ment or the violent death to which the usages of 
those days consigned such unhappy prisoners. Alfred 
baptized the children, and then sent them, with their 
mother, loaded with presents and proofs of kindness, 
back to Hastings again. 

This generosity made no impression upon the 
heart of Hastings, or, at least, it produced no effect 
upon his conduct. He continued the war as ener- 
getically as ever. Months passed away and new re- 
enforcements arrived, until at length he felt strong 
enough to undertake an excursion into the very heart 
of the country. He moved on for a time with tri- 
umphant success; but this very success was soon the 
means of turning the current against him again. It 
aroused the whole country through which he was 
passing. The inhabitants flocked to arms. They as- 
sembled at every rallying point, and, drawing up on 
all sides nearer and nearer to Hastings's army, they 



893] THE CLOSE OF LIFE 199 

finally stopped his march, and forced him to call all 
his forces in, and intrench himself in the first place 
of retreat that he could find. Thus his very success 
was the means of turning his good fortune into dis- 
aster. 

And then, in the same way, the success, of Alfred 
and the Saxons soon brought disaster upon them too, 
in their turn; for, after succeeding in shutting Has- 
tings closely in, and cutting off his supplies of food, 
they maintained their watch and ward over their im- 
prisoned enemies so closely as to reduce them to 
extreme distress — a distress and suffering which they 
thought would end in their complete and absolute 
submission. Instead of ending thus, however, it 
aroused them to desperation. Under the influence of 
the frensy which such hopeless sufferings produce 
in characters like theirs, they burst out one day from 
the place of their confinement, and, after a terrible 
conflict, which choked up a river which they had to 
pass with dead bodies and dyed its waters with blood, 
the great body of the starving desperadoes made their 
escape, and, in a wild and furious excitement, half a 
triumph and half a retreat, they went back to the 
eastern coast of the island, where they found secure 
places of refuge to receive them. 

In the course of the subsequent campaigns, a party 
of the Danes came up the River Thames with a fleet 
of their vessels, and an account is given by some of 



200 ALFRED THE GREAT [896 

the ancient historians of a measure which Alfred re- 
sorted to to entrap them, which would seem to be 
scarcely credible. The account is, that he altered the 
course of the river by digging new channels for it, 
so as to leave the vessels all aground, when, of 
course, they became helpless, and fell an easy prey 
to the attacks of their enemies. This is, at least, a 
very improbable statement, for a river like the Thames 
occupies always the lowest channel of the land 
through which it passes to the sea. Besides, such a 
river, in order that it should be possible for vessels 
to ascend it from the ocean, must have the surface of 
its water very near the level of the surface of the 
ocean. There can, therefore, be no place to which 
such waters could be drawn off, unless into a valley 
below the level of the sea. All such valleys, when- 
ever they exist in the interior of a country, necessarily 
get filled with water from brooks and rains, and so 
become lakes or inland seas. It is probable, there- 
fore, that it was some other operation which Alfred 
performed to imprison the hostile vessels in the river, 
more possible in its own nature than the drawing off 
of the waters of the Thames from their ancient bed. 
Year after year passed on, and, though neither the 
Saxons nor the Danes gained any very permanent 
and decisive victories, the invaders were gradually 
losing ground, being driven from one intrenchment 
and one stronghold to another, until, at last, their 



896] THE CLOSE OF LIFE 201 

only places of jefuge were their ships, and the har- 
bors along the margin of the sea. Alfred followed 
on and occupied the country as fast as the enemy 
was driven away; and when, at last, they began to 
seek refuge in their ships, he advanced to the shore, 
and began to form plans for building ships, and man- 
ning and equipping a fleet, to pursue his retiring en- 
emies upon their own element. In this undertaking, 
he proceeded in the same calm, deliberate, and ef- 
fectual manner, as in all his preceding measures. He 
built his vessels with great care. He made them 
twice as long as those of the Danes, and planned 
them so as to make them more steady, more safe, 
and capable of carrying a crew of rowers so numer- 
ous as to be more active and swift than the vessels 
of the enemy. 

When these naval preparations were made, Alfred 
began to look out for an object of attack on which he 
could put their efficiency to the test. He soon heard 
of a fleet of the Northmen's vessels on the coast of 
the Isle of Wight, and he sent a fleet of his own 
ships to attack them. He charged the commander of 
this fleet to be sparing of life, but to capture the 
ships and take the men, bringing as many as possi- 
ble to him unharmed. 

There were nine of the English vessels, and when 
they reached the Isle of Wight they found six vessels 
of the Danes in a harbor there. Three of these Dan- 



202 ALFRED THE GREAT [896 

ish vessels were afloat, and came out boldly to at- 
tack Alfred's armament. The other three were upon 
the shore, where they had been left by the tide, and 
were, of course, disabled and defenseless until the 
water should rise and float them again. Under these 
circumstances, it would seem that the victory for Al- 
fred's fleet would have been easy and sure; and at 
first the result was, in fact, in Alfred's favor. Of the 
three ships that came out to meet him, two were 
captured, and one escaped, with only five men left on 
board of it alive. The Saxon ships, after thus disposing 
of the three living and moving enemies, pushed boldly 
into the harbor to attack those which were lying life- 
less on the sands. They found, however, that though 
successful in the encounter with the active and pow- 
erful, they were destined to disaster and defeat in ap- 
proaching the defenseless and weak. They got aground 
themselves in approaching the shoals on which the 
vessels of their enemies were lying. The tide receded 
and left three of the vessels on the sands, and kept 
the rest so separated and so embarrassed by the dif- 
ficulties and dangers of their situation as to expose 
the whole force to the most imminent danger. There 
was a fierce contest in boats and on the shore. Both 
parties suffered very severely ; and, finally, the 
Danes, getting first released, made their escape and 
put to sea. 

Notwithstanding this partial discomfiture, Alfred 



897] THE CLOSE OF LIFE 203 

soon succeeded in driving the ships of the Danes off 
his coast, and in thus completing the deliverance of 
his country. Hastings himself went to France, where 
he spent the remainder of his days in some territories 
which he had previously conquered, enjoying, while 
he continued to live, and for many ages afterward, a 
very extended and very honorable fame. Such ex- 
ploits as those which he had performed conferred in 
those days, upon the hero who performed them, a 
very high distinction, the luster of which seems not 
to have been at all tarnished in the opinions of mankind 
by any ideas of the violence and wrong which the 
commission of such deeds involved. 

Alfred's dominions were now left once more in 
peace, and he himself resumed again his former vo- 
cations. But a very short period of his life, however, 
now remained. Hastings was finally expelled from 
England about 897. In 900 or 901 Alfred died. The 
interval was spent in the same earnest and devoted 
efforts to promote the welfare and prosperity of his 
kingdom that his life had exhibited before the war. 
He was engaged diligently and industriously in re- 
pairing injuries, redressing, grievances, and rectifying 
every thing that was wrong. He exacted rigid im- 
partiality in all the courts of justice; he held pubHc 
servants of every rank and station to a strict account- 
ability; and in all the colleges, and monasteries, and 
ecclesiastical establishments of every kind, he cor- 



ao4 ALFRED THE GREAT [900 

reeled all abuses, and enforced a rigid discipline, 
faithfully extirpating from every lurking place all sem- 
blance of immorality or vice. He did these things, 
too, with so much kindness and consideration for all 
concerned, and was actuated in all he did so unques- 
tionably by an honest and sincere desire to fulfill his 
duty to his people and to God, that nobody opposed 
him. The good considered him their champion, the 
indifferent readily caught a portion of his spirit and 
wished him success, while the wicked were silenced 
if they were not changed. 

Alfred's children had grown up to maturity, and 
seemed to inherit, in some degree, their father's char- 
acter. He had a daughter, named y^thelfleda, who 
was married to a prince of Mercia, and who was 
famed all over England for the superiority of her 
mental powers, her accomplishments, and her moral 
worth. The name of his oldest son was Edward; he 
was to succeed Alfred on the throne, and it was a 
source now of great satisfaction to the king to find 
this son emulating his virtues, and preparing for an 
honorable and prosperous reign. Alfred had warning, 
in the progress of his disease, of the approach of his 
end. When he found that the time was near at 
hand, he called his son Edward to his side, and gave 
him these his farewell counsels, which express in few 
words the principles and motives by which his own 
life had been so fully governed. 



9oo] THE CLOSE OF LIFE 205 

"Thou, my dear son, set thee now beside me, 
and I will deliver thee true instructions. 1 feel that 
my hour is coming. My strength is gone; my coun- 
tenance is wasted and pale. My days are almost 
ended. We must now part. I go to another world, 
and thou art to be left alone in the possession of all 
that I have thus far held. I pray thee, my dear child, 
to be a father to thy people. Be the children's father 
and the widow's friend. Comfort the poor, protect 
and shelter the weak, and, with all thy might, right 
that which is wrong. And, my son, govern thyself 
by law. Then shall the Lord love thee, and God 
himself shall be thy reward. Call thou upon him to 
advise thee in all thy need, and he shall help thee 
to compass all thy desires." 

Alfred was fifty-two years of age when he died. 
His death was universally lamented. The body was 
interred in the great cathedral at Winchester. The 
kingdom passed peacefully and prosperously to his 
son, and the arrangements which Alfred had spent 
his hfe in framing and carrying into effect, soon be- 
gan to work out their happy results. The construc- 
tions which he founded stand to the present day, 
strengthened and extended rather than impaired by 
the hand of time; and his memory, as their founder, 
will be honored as long as any remembrance of the 
past shall endure among the minds of men. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Sequel. 

The story of Godwin.— Contentions between the Saxons and Danes. — William 
the Conqueror. — Godwin's parentage. — :Ethelred. — His marriage. — Ca- 
nute the Dane. — War between Ethelred and Canute. — Death of EJthelred. 
— tJlf in the wood. — His bewilderment. — Ulf rescued b}' Godwin. — His of- 
fers to Godwin. — The gold ring. — Concealment in the herdsman's hut. — 
Godwin's father's charge to Ulf. — Ulf's fidelity. — Godwin's rise to power. 

— His daughter Edith. — Edith's gentleness and kindness. — Conquests of 
Canute. — Canute marries Emma. — Policy of this act. — Canute's govern- 
ment. — His death. — Harold's accession. — The panic. — The fugitives in 
the I,incolnshire fens. — Alarm of the monks. — The country settled. — 
Submission of Godwin and Emma.— Emma's family. — Her plans. — Al- 
fred's expedition. — Godwin goes to meet him. — Godwin's designs.— His 
address to the Saxon chiefs. — Defeat of Alfred. — Execution of his com- 
panions. — Alfred's cruel fate. — Banishment of Emma. — Accession of 
Hardicanute. — His indignities to Harold's remains. — Godwin's trial. — 
His costly presents to Hardicanute. — Hardicanute's tyranny. — His death. 

— Final expulsion of the Danes. — Edward invited to the throne. — His 
coronation,— Edward marries Edith. — Godwin's difficulties. — Story of 
Godwin's death. — His protestations of innocence. — Godwin's death. — 
His sons. 

THE romantic story of Godwin forms the sequel 
to tlie history of Alfred, leading us onward, 
as it does, toward the next great era in 
English history, that of William the Conqueror. 

Although, as we have seen in the last chapter, the 
immediate effects of Alfred's measures was to re-es- 
tablish peace and order in his kingdom, and although 
the institutions which he founded have continued to 
(206) 



10I3] THE SEQUEL 107 

expand and develop themselves down to the present 
day, still it must not be supposed that the power and 
prosperity of his kingdom and of the Saxon dynasty 
continued wholly uninterrupted after his death. Con- 
tentions and struggles between the two great races 
of Saxons and Danes continued for some centuries to 
agitate the island. The particular details of these 
contentions have in these days, in a great measure, 
lost their interest for all but professed historical schol- 
ars. It is only the history of great leading events 
and the lives of really extraordinary men, in the an- 
nals of early ages, which can now attract the general 
attention even of cultivated minds. The vast move- 
ments which have occurred and are occurring in the 
history of mankind in the present century, throw 
every thing except what is really striking and im- 
portant in early history into the shade. 

The era which comes next in the order of time to 
that of Alfred in the course of English history, as 
worthy to arrest general attention, is, as we have 
already said, that of William the Conqueror. The 
life of this sovereign forms the subject of a separate 
volume of this series. He lived two centuries after 
Alfred's day; and although, for the reasons above 
given, a full chronological narration of the conten- 
tions between the Saxon and Danish lines of kings 
which took place during this interval would be of 
little interest or value, some general knowledge of 



2o8 ALFRED THE GREAT [1013 

the state of the kingdom at this time is important, 
and may best be communicated in connection with 
the story of Godwin. 

Godwin was by birth a Saxon peasant, of Warwick- 
shire. At the time when he arrived at manhood, and 
was tending his father's flocks and herds like other 
peasants' sons, the Saxons and the Danes were at war. 
It seems that one of Alfred's descendants, named 
Ethelred, displeased his people by his misgovern- 
ment, and was obliged to retire from England. He 
went across the Channel, and married there the sister 
of a Norman chief named Richard. Her name was 
Emma. Ethelred hoped by this alliance to obtain 
Richard's assistance in enabling him to recover his 
kingdom. The Danish population, however, took ad- 
vantage of his absence to put one of their own 
princes upon the throne. His name was Canute. 
He figures in English history, accordingly, among the 
other English kings, as Canute the Dane, that appel- 
lation being given him to mark the distinction of his 
origin in respect to the kings who preceded and fol- 
lowed him, as they were generally of the Saxon line. 

It was this Canute of whom the famous story is 
told that, in order to rebuke his flatterers, who, in 
extolling his grandeur and power, had represented to 
him that even the elements were subservient to his 
will, he took his stand upon the sea-shore when the 
tide was coming in, with his flatterers by his side, 



10I3] THE SEQUEL 209 

and commanded the rising waves not to approach his 
royal feet. He kept his sycophantic courtiers in this 
ridiculous position until the encroaching waters drove 
them away, and then dismissed them overwhelmed 
with confusion. The story is told in a thousand dif- 
ferent ways, and with a great variety of different 
embellishments, according to the fancy of the several 
narrators; all that there is now any positive evidence 
for believing, however, is, that probably some simple 
incident of the kind occurred, out of which the stories 
have grown. 

Canute did not hold his kingdom in peace. Ethel- 
red sent his son across the Channel into England to 
negotiate with the Anglo-Saxon powers for his own 
restoration to the throne. An arrangement was ac- 
cordingly made with them, and Ethelred returned, 
and a violent civil war immediately ensued between 
Ethelred and the Anglo-Saxons on the one hand, and 
Canute and the Danes on the other. At length Ethel- 
red fell, and his son Edmund, who was at the time 
of his death one of his generals, succeeded him. 
Emma and his two other sons had been left in Nor- 
mandy. Edmund carried on the war against Canute 
with great energy. One of his battles was fought in 
the county of Warwick, in the heart of England, 
where the peasant Godwin lived. In this battle the 
Danes were defeated, and the discomfited generals fled 
in all directions from the field wherever they saw the 

M. of H.— 15— 14 



aio ALFRED THE GREAT [1013 

readiest hope of concealment or safety. One of them, 
named Ulf,* took a by-way, which led him in the 
direction of Godwin's father's farm. 

Night came on, and he lost his way in a wood. 
Men, when flying under such circumstances from a 
field of battle, avoid always the public roads, and 
seek concealment in unfrequented paths, where they 
easily get bewildered and lost. Ulf wandered about 
all night in the forest, and when the morning came 
he found himself exhausted with fatigue, anxiety, and 
hunger, certain to perish unless he could find some 
succor, and yet dreading the danger of being recog- 
nized as a Danish fugitive if he were to be discovered 
by any of the Saxon inhabitants of the land. At 
length he heard the shouts of a peasant who was 
coming along a solitary pathway through the wood, 
driving a herd to their pasture. Ulf would gladly 
have avoided him if he could have gone on without 
succor or help. His plan was to find his way to the 
Severn, where some Danish ships were lying, in hopes 
of a refuge on board of them. But he was exhausted 
with hunger and fatigue, and utterly bewildered and 
lost; so he was compelled to go forward, and take 
the risk of accosting the Saxon stranger. 

He accordingly went up to him, and asked him 
his name. Godwin told him his name, and the name 
of his father, who lived, he said, at a little distance 

* Pronounced Oolf. 



10I3] THE SEQUEL 211 

in the wood. While he was answering the question, 
he gazed very earnestly at the stranger, and then told 
him that he perceived that he was a Dane — a fugi- 
tive, he supposed, from the battle. Ulf, thus finding 
that he could not be concealed, begged Godwin not to 
betray him. He acknowledged that he was a Dane, 
and that he had made his escape from the battle, and 
he wished, he said, to find his way to the Danish 
ships in the Severn. He begged Godwin to conduct 
him there. Godwin replied by saying that it was 
unreasonable and absurd for a Dane to expect guid- 
ance and protection from a Saxon. 

Ulf offered Godwin all sorts of rewards if he would 
leave his herd and conduct him to a place of safety. 
Godwin said that the attempt, were he to make it, 
would endanger his own life without saving that of 
the fugitive. The country, he said, was all in arms. 
The peasantry, emboldened by the late victory ob- 
tained by the Saxon army, were every where rising; 
and although it was not far to the Severn, yet to 
attempt to reach the river while the country was in 
such a state of excitement would be a desperate un- 
dertaking. They would almost certainly be inter- 
cepted; and, if intercepted, their exasperated captors 
would show no mercy, Godwin said, either to him 
or to his guide. 

Among the other inducements which Ulf offered 
to Godwin was a valuable gold ring, which he took 



212 ALFRED THE GREAT [1013 

from his finger, and which, he said, should be his if 
he would consent to be his guide. Godwin took the 
ring into his hand, examined it with much appar- 
ent curiosity, and seemed to hesitate. At length he 
yielded; though he seems to have been induced to 
yield, not by the value of the offered gift, but by 
compassion for the urgency of the distress which the 
offer of it indicated, for he put the ring back into 
Ulfs hand, saying that he would not take any thing 
from him, but he would try to save him. 

Instead, however, of undertaking the apparently 
hopeless enterprise of conducting Ulf to the Severn, 
he took him to his father's cottage and concealed 
him there. During the day they formed plans for 
journeying together, not to the ships in the Severn, 
but to the Danish camp. They were to set forth as 
soon as it was dark. When the evening came and 
all was ready, and they were about to commence 
their dangerous journey, the old peasant, Godwin's 
father, with an anxious countenance and manner, 
gave Ulf this solemn charge: 

"This is my only son. In going forth to guide 
you under these circumstances, he puts his life at 
stake, trusting to your honor. He can not return to 
me again, as there will be no more safety for him 
among his own countrymen after having once been a 
guide for you. When, therefore, you reach the camp, 



loij] THE SEQUEL 213 

present my son to your king, and ask him to receive 
him into his service. He can not come again to me." 



Ulf promised very earnestly to do all this and 
much more for his protector; and then bidding the 
father farewell, and leaving him in his solitude, the 
two adventurers sallied forth into the dark forest and 
went their way. 

After various adventures, they reached the camp of 
the Danes in safety. Ulf faithfully fulfilled the prom- 
ises that he had made. He introduced Godwin to 
the king, and the king was so much pleased with the 
story of his general's escape, and so impressed with 
the marks of capacity and talent which the young 
Saxon manifested, that he gave Godwin immediately 
a military command in his army. In fact, a young 
man who could leave his home and his father, and 
abandon the cause of his countrymen forever under 
such circumstances, must have had something besides 
generosity toward a fugitive enemy to impel him. 
Godwin was soon found to possess a large portion of 
that peculiar spirit which constitutes a soldier. He 
was ambitious, stern, energetic, and always success- 
ful. He rose rapidly in influence and rank, and in the 
course of a few years, during which King Canute tri- 
umphed wholly over his Saxon enemies, and estab- 
lished his dominion over almost the whole realm, he 
was promoted to the rank of a king, and ruled, sec- 



214 ALFRED THE GREAT [1013 

ond only to Canute himself, over the kingdom of 
Wessex, one of the most important divisions of Ca- 
nute's empire. Here he lived and reigned in peace and 
prosperity for many years. He was married, and he 
had a daughter named Edith, who was as gentle and 
lovely as her father was terrible and stern. They said 
that Edith sprung from Godwin like a rose from its 
stem of thorns. 

A writer who lived in those days, and recorded 
the occurrences of the times, says that, when he was 
a boy, his father was employed in some way in 
Godwin's palace, and that in going to and from 
school he was often met by Edith, who was walk- 
ing, attended by her maid. On such occasions Edith 
would stop him, he said, and question him about his 
studies, his grammar, his logic, and his verses; and 
she would often draw him into an argument on those 
subtle points of disputation which attracted so much 
attention in those days. Then she would commend 
him for his attention and progress, and order her 
woman to make him a present of some money. In 
a word, Edith was so gentle and kind, and took so 
cordial an interest in whatever concerned the welfare 
and happiness of those around her, that she was uni- 
versally beloved. She became in the end, as we shall 
see in due time, the English queen. 

In the mean time, while Godwin was governing, 
as vicegerent, the province which Canute had assigned 



IOI3] THE SEQUEL 215 

him, Canute himself extended his own dominion far 
and wide, reducing first all England under his sway, 
and then extending his conquests to the Continent, 
Edmund, the Saxon king, was dead. His brothers 
Edward and Alfred, the two remaining sons of Ethel- 
red, were with their mother in Normandy. They, of 
course, represented the Saxon line. The Saxon por- 
tion of Canute's kingdom would of course look to 
them as their future leaders. Under these circum- 
stances, Canute conceived the idea of propitiating the 
Saxon portion of the population, and combining, so 
far as was possible, the claims of the two lines, by 
making the widow Emma his own wife. He made 
the proposal to her, and she accepted it, pleased with 
the idea of being once more a queen. She came to 
England, and they were married. In process of time 
they had a son, who was named Hardicanute, which 
means Canute the strong. 

Canute now felt that his kingdom was secure; 
and he hoped, by making Hardicanute his heir, to 
perpetuate the dominion in his own family. It is 
true that he had older children, whom the Danes 
might look upon as more properly his heirs; and 
Emma had also two older children, the sons of Ethel- 
red, in Normandy. These the Saxons would be likely 
to consider as the rightful heirs to the throne. There 
was danger, therefore, that at his death parties would 
again be formed, and the civil wars break out anew. 



2i6 ALFRED THE GREAT [1031 

Canute and Emma therefore seem to have acted 
wisely, and to have done all that the nature of the 
case admitted to prevent a renewal of these dreadful 
struggles, by concentrating their combined influence 
in favor of Hardicanute, who, though not absolutely 
the heir to either line, still combined, in some de- 
gree, the claims of both of them. Canute also did 
all in his power to propitiate his Anglo-Saxon sub- 
jects. He devoted himself to promoting the welfare 
of the kingdom in every way. He built towns, he 
constructed roads, he repaired and endowed the 
churches. He became a very zealous Christian, evinc- 
ing the ardor of his piety, whether real or pretended, 
by all the forms and indications common in those 
days. Finally, to crown all, he went on a pilgrimage 
to Rome. He set out on this journey with great 
pomp and parade, and attended by a large retinue, 
and yet still strictly like a pilgrim. He walked, and 
carried a wallet on his back, and a long pilgrim's 
staff in his hand. This pilgrimage, at the time when 
it occurred, filled the world with its fame. 

At length King Canute died, and then, unfortu- 
nately, it proved that all his seemingly wise precau- 
tions against the recurrence of civil wars were taken 
in vain. It happened that Hardicanute, whom he had 
intended should succeed him, was in Denmark at the 
time of his father's death. Godwin, however, pro- 
claimed him king, and attempted to establish his au- 



io3i] THE SEQUEL 217 

thority, and to make Emma a sort of regent, to govern in 
his name until he could be brought home. The Danish 
chieftains, on the other hand, elected and proclaimed 
one of Canute's older sons, whose name was Harold;* 
and they succeeded in carrying a large part of the 
country in his favor. Godwin then summoned Emma 
to join him in the west with such forces as she could 
command, and both parties prepared for war. 

Then ensued one of those scenes of terror and suf- 
fering which war, and sometimes the mere fear of 
war, brings often in its train. It was expected that 
the first outbreak of hostilities would be in the inte- 
rior of England, near the banks of the Thames, and 
the inhabitants of the whole region were seized with 
apprehensions and fears, which spread rapidly, in- 
creased by the influence of sympathy, and excited 
more and more every day by a thousand groundless 
rumors, until the whole region was thrown into a 
state of uncontrollable panic and confusion. The in- 
habitants abandoned their dwellings, and fled in dis- 
may into the eastern part of the island, to seek refuge, 
among the fens and marshes of Lincolnshire, and of 
the other counties around. Here, as has been already 
stated in a previous chapter when describing the Ab- 
bey of Crowland, were a great many monasteries and 
convents, and hermitages, and other religious estab- 
lishments, filled with monks and nuns. The wretched 

* Spelled sometimes Herald. 



2i8 ALFRED THE GREAT [1037 

fugitives from the expected scene of war crowded 
into this region, besieging the doors of the abbeys 
and monasteries to beg for shelter, or food, or pro- 
tection. Some built huts among the willow woods 
which grew in the fens; others encamped at the 
road-sides, or under the monastery wails, wherever 
they could find the semblance of shelter. They pre- 
sented, of course, a piteous spectacle, — men infirm 
with sickness or age, or exhausted with anxiety and 
fatigue; children harassed and way-worn; and help- 
less mothers, with still morq helpless babes at their 
breasts. The monks, instead of being moved to com- 
passion by the sight of these unhappy sufferers, were 
only alarmed on their own account at such an inun- 
dation of misery. They feared that they should be 
overwhelmed themselves. Those whose establish- 
ments were large and strong, barred their doors 
against the suppliants, and the hermits, who lived 
alone in detached and separate solitudes, abandoned 
their osier huts, and fled themselves to seek some 
place more safe from such intrusions. 

And yet, after all, the whole scene was only a 
false alarm. Men acting in a panic are almost always 
running into the ills which they think they shun. 
The war did not break out on the banks of the 
Thames at all. Hardicanute, deterred, perhaps, by the 
extent of the support which the claims of Harold 
were receiving, did not venture to come to England, 



I037] THE SEQUEL 219 

and Emma and Godwin, and those who would have 
taken their side, having no royal head to lead them, 
gave up their opposition, and acquiesced in Harold's 
reign. The fugitives in the marshes and fens returned 
to their homes; the country became tranquil; Godwin 
held his province as a sort of lieutenant general of 
Harold's kingdom, and Emma herself joined his court 
in London, where she lived with him ostensibly on 
very friendly terms. 

Still, her mind was ill at ease. Harold, though 
the son of her husband, was not her own son, and 
the ambitious spirit which led her to marry for her 
second husband her first husband's rival and enemy, 
that she might be a second time a queen, naturally 
made her desire that one of her own offspring, either 
on the Danish or the Saxon side, should inherit the 
kingdom; for the reader must not forget that Emma, 
besides being the mother of Hardicanute by her sec- 
ond husband Canute, the Danish sovereign, was also 
the mother of Edward and Alfred by her first husband 
Ethelred, of the Anglo-Saxon line, and that these two 
sons were in Normandy now. The family connection 
will be more apparent to the eye by the following 
scheme: 

Ethelred the Saxon. Emma. Canute the Dane. 

Edward. Hardicanute. 

Alfred. 



220 ALFRED THE GREAT [1037 

Harold was the son of Canute by a former mar- 
riage. Emma, of course, felt no maternal interest in 
him, and though compelled by circumstances to ac- 
quiesce for a time in his possession of the kingdom, 
her thoughts were continually with her own sons; 
and since the attempt to bring Hardicanute to the 
throne had failed, she began to turn her attention to- 
ward her Norman children. 

After scheming for a time, she wrote letters to 
them, proposing that they should come to England. 
She represented to them that the Anglo-Saxon portion 
of the people were ill at ease under Harold's domin- 
ion, and would gladly embrace any opportunity of 
having a Saxon king. She had no doubt, she said, 
that if one of them were to appear in England and 
claim the throne, the people would rise in mass to 
support him, and he would easily get possession of 
the realm. She invited them, therefore, to repair se- 
cretly to England, to confer with her on the subject; 
charging them, however, to bring very few, if any, 
Norman attendants with them, as the English people 
were inclined to be very jealous of the influence of 
foreigners. 

The brothers were very much elated at receiving 
these tidings; so much so that in their zeal they were 
disposed to push the enterprise much faster than their 
mother had intended. Instead of going, themselves, 
quietly and secretly to confer with her in London, 



I037] THE SEQUEL 121 

they organized an armed expedition of Norman sol- 
diers. Tiie youngest, Alfred, with an enthusiasm 
characteristic of his years, took the lead in these 
measures. He undertook to conduct the expedition. 
The eldest consented to his making the attempt. He 
landed at Dover, and began his march through the 
southern part of the country. Godwin went forth to 
meet him. Whether he would join his standard or 
meet him as a foe, no one could tell. Emma consid- 
ered that Godwin was on her side, though even she 
had not recommended an armed invasion of the 
country. 

It is very probable that Godwin himself was un- 
certain, at first, what course to pursue, and that he 
intended to have espoused Prince Alfred's cause if 
he had found that it presented any reasonable pros- 
pect of success. Or he may have felt bound to serve 
Harold faithfully, now that he had once given in his 
adhesion to him. Of course, he kept his thoughts 
and plans to himself, leaving the world to see only 
his deeds. But if he had ever entertained any design 
of espousing Alfred's cause, he abandoned it before 
the time arrived for action. As he advanced into the 
southern part of the island, he called together the 
leading Saxon chiefs to hold a council, and he made 
an address to them when they were convened, which 
had a powerful influence on their minds in prevent- 
ing their deciding in favor of Alfred. However much 



212 ALFRED THE GREAT [1037 

they might desire a monarch of their own line, this, 
he said, was not the proper occasion for effecting 
their end. Alfred was, it was true, an Anglo-Saxon 
by descent, but he was a Norman by birth and edu- 
cation. All his friends and supporters were Normans. 
He had come now into the realm of England with a 
retinue of Norman followers, who would, if he were 
successful, monopolize the honors and offices which 
he would have to bestow. He advised the Anglo- 
Saxon chieftains, therefore, to remain inactive, to 
take no part in the contest, but to wait for some 
other opportunity to re-establish the Saxon line of 
kings. 

The Anglo-Saxon chieftains seem to have consid- 
ered this good advice. At any rate, they made no 
movement to sustain young Alfred's cause. Alfred 
had advanced to the town of Guilford. Here he was 
surrounded by a force which Harold had sent against 
him. There was no hope or possibility of resistance. 
In fact, his enemies seem to have arrived at a time 
when he did not expect an attack, for they entered 
the gates by a sudden onset, when Alfred's followers 
were scattered about the town, at the various houses 
to which they had been distributed. They made no 
attempt to defend themselves, but were taken prison- 
ers one by one, wherever they were found. They 
were bound with cords, and carried away like ordi- 
nary criminals. 



I037] THE SEQUEL 223 

Of Alfred's ten principal Norman companions, nine 
were beheaded. For some rteason or other the life of 
one was spared. Alfred himself was charged with 
having violated the peace of his country, and was 
condemned to lose his eyes. The torture of this 
operation, and the inflammation which followed, des- 
troyed the unhappy prince's life. Neither Emma nor 
Godwm did any thing to save him. It was wise pol- 
icy, no doubt, in Emma to disavow all connection 
with her son's unfortunate attempt, now that it had 
failed; and ambitious queens have to follow the dic- 
tates of policy, instead of obeying such impulses as 
maternal love. She was, however, secretly indignant 
at the cruel fate which her son had endured, and she 
considered Godwin as having betrayed him. 

After this dreadful disappointment, Emma was not 
likely to make any farther attempts to place either of 
her sons upon the throne; but Harold seems to have 
distrusted her, for he banished her from the realm. 
She had still her Saxon son in Normandy, Alfred's 
brother Edward, and her Danish son in Denmark. 
She went to Flanders, and there sent to Hardicanute, 
urging him by the most earnest importunities to come 
to England and assert his claims to the crown. He 
was doubly bound to do it now, she said, as the blood 
of his murdered brother called for retribution, and he 
could have no honorable rest or peace until he had 
avenged it. 



114 ALFRED THE GREAT [104O 

There was no occasion, however, for Hardicanute to 
attempt force for the recovery of his kingdom, for not 
many months after these transactions Harold died, and 
then the country seemed generally to acquiesce in Har- 
dicanute's accession. The Anglo-Saxons, discouraged 
perhaps by the discomfiture of their cause in the per- 
son of Alfred, made no attempt to rise. Hardicanute 
came accordingly and assumed the throne. But, 
though he had not courage and energy enough to en- 
counter his rival Harold during his lifetime, he made 
what amends he could by offering base indignities to 
his body after he was hiid in the grave. His first 
public act after his accession was to have the body 
disinterred, and, after cutting off the head, he threw 
the mangled remains into the Thames. The Danish 
fishermen in the river found them, and buried them 
again in a private sepulcher in London, with su-ch con- 
cealed marks of respect and honor as it was in their 
power to bestow. 

Hardicanute also instituted legal proceedings to in- 
quire into the death of Alfred. He charged the Sax- 
ons with having betrayed him, especially those who 
were rich enough to pay the fines, by which, in those 
days, it was very customary for criminals to atone 
for their crimes. Godwin himself was brought be- 
fore the tribunal, and charged with being accessory 
to Alfred's death, Godwin positively asserted his in- 
nocence, and brought witnesses to prove that he was 



i04o] THE SEQUEL 225 

entirely free from all participation in the affair. He 
took also a much more effectual method to secure an 
acquittal, by making to King Hardicanute some most 
magnificent presents. One of these was a small ship, 
profusely enriched and ornamented with gold. It 
contained eighty soldiers, armed in the Danish style, 
with weapons of the most highly-finished and costly 
construction. They each carried a Danish axe on the 
left shoulder, and a javelin in the right hand, both 
richly gilt, and they had each of them a bracelet on 
his arm, containing six ounces of solid gold. Such at 
least is the story. The presents might be considered 
in the light either of a bribe to corrupt justice, or in 
that of a fine to satisfy it. In fact, the line, in those 
days, between bribes to purchase acquittal and fines 
atoning for the offense seems not to have been very 
accurately drawn. 

Hardicanute, when fairly established on his throne, 
governed his realm like a tyrant. He oppressed the 
Saxons especially without any mercy. The effect of 
his cruelties, and those of the Danes who acted un- 
der him, was, however, not to humble and subdue the 
Saxon spirit, but to awaken and arouse it. Plots and 
conspiracies began to be formed against him, and 
against the whole Danish party. Godwin himself be- 
gan to meditate some decisive measures, when, sud- 
denly, Hardicanute died. Godwin immediately took 
the field at the head of all his forces, and organized 

M. ofH.— 15— 15 



226 ALFRED THE GREAT [1041 

a general movement throughout the kingdom for 
calling Edward, Alfred's brother to the throne. This 
insurrection was triumphantly successful. The Danish 
forces that undertook to resist it were driven to the 
northward. The leaders were slain or put to flight. 
A remnant of them escaped to the sea-shore, where 
they embarked on board such vessels as they could 
find, and left England forever; and this was the final 
termination of the political authority of the Danes 
over the realm of England — the consummation and 
end of Alfred's military labors and schemes, coming 
surely at last, though deferred for two centuries after 
his decease. 

What follows belongs rather to the history of 
William the Conqueror than to that of Alfred, for 
Godwin invited Edward, Emma's Norman son, to 
come and assume the crown; and his coming, to- 
gether with that of the many Norman attendants that 
accompanied or followed him, led, in the end, to the 
Norman invasion and conquest. Godwin might prob- 
ably have made himself king if he had chosen to do 
so. His authority over the whole island was para- 
mount and supreme. But, either from a natural sense 
of justice toward the rightful heir, or from a dread of 
the danger which always attends the usurping of the 
royal name by one who is not of royal descent, he 
made no attempt to take the crown. He convened a 
great assembly of all the estates of the realm, and 



I04I] THE SEQUEL 227 

there it was solemnly decided tiiat Edward should be 
invited to come to England and ascend the throne. 
A national messenger was dispatched to Normandy 
to announce the invitation. 

It was stipulated in this invitation that Edward 
should bring very few Normans with him. He came, 
accordingly, in the first instance, almost unattended. 
He was received with great joy, and crowned king 
with splendid ceremonies and great show, in the 
ancient cathedral at Winchester. He felt under great 
obligations to Godwin, to whose instrumentality he 
was wholly indebted for this sudden and most bril- 
liant change in his fortunes; and partly impelled by 
this feeling of gratitude, and partly allured by Edith's 
extraordinary charms, he proposed to make Edith his 
wife. Godwin made no objection. In fact, his ene- 
mies say that he made a positive stipulation for this 
match before allowing the measures for Edward's ele- 
vation to the throne to proceed too far. However 
this may be, Godwin found himself, after Edward's 
accession, raised to the highest pitch of honor and 
power. From being a young herdsman's son, driving 
the cows to pasture in a wood, he had become the 
prime minister, as it were, of the whole realm, his 
four sons being great commanding generals in the 
army, and his daughter the queen. 

The current of life did not flow smoothly with 
him, after all. We can not here describe the various 



228 ALFRED THE GREAT [1041 

difficulties in which he became involved with the 
king on account of the Normans, who were contin- 
ually coming over from the Continent to join Edward's 
court, and whose coming and growing influence 
strongly awakened the jealousy of the English people. 
Some narration of these events will more properly 
precede the history of William the Conqueror. , We 
accordingly close this story of Godwin here by giving 
the circumstances of his death, as related by the his- 
torians of the time. The readers of this narrative 
will, of course, exercise severally their own discretion 
in determining how far they will believe the story to 
be true. 

The story is, that one day he was seated at Ed- 
ward's table, at some sort of entertainment, when one 
of his attendants, who was bringing in a goblet of 
wine, tripped one of his feet, but contrived to save 
himself by dexterously bringing up the other m such 
a manner as to cause some amusement to the guests; 
Godwin said, referring to the man's feet, that one 
brother saved the other. *'Yes," said the king, 
"brothers have need of brothers' aid. Would to God 
that mine were still alive." In saying this he di- 
rected a meaning glance toward Godwin, which 
seemed to insinuate, as, in fact, the king had some- 
times done before, that Godwin had had some 
agency in young Alfred's death. Godwin was dis- 



i04i] THE SEQUEL 229 

pleased. He reproached the king with the unreason- 
ableness of his surmises, and solemnly declared that 
he was wholly innocent of all participation in that 
crime. He imprecated the curse of God upon his 
head if this declaration was not true, wishing that 
the next mouthful of bread that he should eat might 
choke him if he had contributed in any way, directly 
or indirectly, to Alfred's unhappy end. So saying, he 
put the bread into his mouth, and in the act of swal- 
lowing it he was seized with a paroxysm of cough- 
ing and suffocation. The attendants hastened to his 
relief, the guests rose in terror and confusion, God- 
win was borne away by two of his sons, and laid on 
his bed in convulsions. He survived the immediate 
injury, but after lingering five days he died. 

Edward continued to reign in prosperity long after 
this event, and he employed the sons of Godwin as 
long as he lived in the most honorable stations of 
public service. In fact, when he died, he named one 
of them as his successor to the throne. 



THE END. 



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